Mosh-Pit Foamers (7/31)

[Latimeria]

Met up with Squatch for a quick morning run out to the inner banks and troll for tuna or paddy hop.  I also needed to try my newly tied up spreader bars and see if they ran true or not.

Squatch holding the Curmudgeon's leash.



On the way out, we saw something bobbing in the water and went to check it out.  It was a burlap bag that said Cafe something or other on it and we were pretty sure it might have been a drug dump, but of course I said "Could be a bag of decapitated heads"... Squatch's demeaner totally changed and he poked it with the gaff.  Damn thing clunked like he hit a skull and we decided we were going to leave it for someone else to find.



We get out and start to troll before finding a nice paddy.  We looked behind up and thought we saw a "Mega-pod of dolphin going nuts, but we stuck with the paddy.  As I looked at them again, I realized it was 2 football fields of GIANT TUNA!  f@ck!!!!

We both wanted to take video, but we couldn't stop casting into them.  The damn things didn't even sniff our offerings when casting and reeling right through them.  The fish were moving fast and sinking out for 30 minutes before resurfacing.  There were schools in the 20-40# range, 60-90# range and real giants in the 100-150# range just foaming the ocean!  It was surrealistic!  The sounds of them hitting the water sounded like bodies falling from the sky!

We trolled in between foamers and couldn't get anything to take the bait.  The other boats in the area all left to look for biting fish.  One guy on the radio said "I'm done chasing these Mosh-Pit Foamers.... All show and no go"....  Whoever this was nailed it perfectly  as it was like a giant bluefin tuna mosh pit when they came up!

After a few hours of nada, they sunk out and you would have ever known they were ever there.  It was pretty crazy.



We trolled north and saw some boats running and gunning.  Just then we saw fish busting at the surface, but still a no go.  We then saw what was busting fish and they all turned out to be dolphin.  Then we saw what we thought were dolphin and it was a GIANT FOAMER of Giants!  f@ckers sunk out after a few casts at them. 

We trolled until we just called it quits.  We literally saw tons and tons of fish, but not a single boat hooked up all morning.

Anyway, it was a great trip even if we didn't get them, but to know they were so close was pretty cool.  Everything appeared to be BFT, but I was assuming the smaller grade ones we saw were the YFT's.

Anyway, thanks for reading and another skunk in the books!

[jrodda]

Thanks for the write up. It's pretty magical to be amidst foamers of giants but turns into another fish story as I have to explain why the chest freezer is still empty.

No signs of life on Sunday from Dana to the 209 to Oside canyon following the ledge back up to DP. Water temp 70.5-72° all day. I did see a half mile wide pod of Rissos dolphins around the 209, which was pretty cool. Got drizzled on for 15 minutes as well. Wish I saw some fish though. Definitely gonna try the local SD banks again next week.

[vdisney]

Great read Tom, a video would have been awesome.  You never did tell us your home made spreaders ran.........

[Tim524]

Bummer on thousands of tuna with Lock Jaw, hard to believe a skunk is even possible, especially for you   The burlap  mystery would be hard to not take a peek.