You Should've Been Here Yesterday (6/15)

[Latimeria]

All week and fairly locally, the big Bluefin have been biting.  Got my intel from the inner circle and packed my gear accordingly.  I opted to leave the light stuff at home because there was no chance at little yellowfin or dorado this time of year and we had plans to just big game hunt.  I saw it was going to get a little lumpy out there, so was mentally preparing for a beat down on my body.

We picked up a healthy scoop and plans were to hit the 302, then 371, then 425, then the tuna pens.

We metered some life and plenty of birds at the 302.  Saw a few Brown Boobies which was really cool.  They kept checking out our spread as we gave the Macs a troll at the high point.



We metered some fish, but couldn't raise any, so we moved on to the 371.  We fished bait on a few paddies, but they were only holding Blue Perch of all things.

The 371 was clean, but no bait in the water column and pretty lifeless.  Not even a bird, but the sun was breaking through, so it was nice to see out there since the sun hasn't shown its face offshore for months!



We didn't spend much time here and headed to the 425.  We checked the high spots and there were boats around, but nothing.  We metered a few fish, so dropped baits, knife jigs, and a few other "secrets" from the old tackle box for nothing.  We decided to troll to the tuna pans since that's where most of the fleet was.



Man, that place must be a nightmare to fish at night with all of the pen ropes and mexican commercial fleet out there.  It was hard enough in the day just to avoid all of the hazzards.



We ditched the macs and put out the spreader bars, since we've always done very well on them.  It wasn't long and we had a short screamer!  I saw the hit, but thought it was just a small Bluefin.  Caleb jumped on the rod to start the grind.



Knew it wasn't a BFT, but WTH is it?  Well, we found out with some big bonito!



We didn't want to go light for bones, so we kept the big spreader bars out.  Well, those big bones loved the big baits and it was really quick between take downs!  Caleb got most of the action on these guys and he was just stoked to be catching over doing nothing.  My buddy didn't want to scale down just in case a BFT was around, so I put out a small short drop back troller since I wanted to join in on the fun!

Funny, trying to swing a 10+ pound bonito on a big spreader bar isn't as easy as it may seem.  We threw a few on the bounce attempts, but it didn't matter, there was plenty around.

We got a half dozen from 9.5-12 pounds... legit bonito and would have been really fun on the bass gear!







I heard Shaun tell Cayleb to grab the gaff and get a swing in.  I didn't realize he hasn't gaffed a fish yet, so what better way than a big feisty bone!  It took off as he was sinking the gaff, but nailed it on the first shot!  Bravo boss!



Having him also get into the routine of the trolling hook up was good training when the big one hits.

Well, we decided to head back to the Kidney since we saw life there earlier and it was already 5:00pm.  It's been a long day since 4:00 am and we were going to head into some nasty stuff.  It probably wouldn't have been so bad, but my buddy is more of a "steerer" than a "driver".  I mean hit the throttle and two hands on the wheel, so we spent a lot of time crash landing over 7 footers.  The only thing that saved me was the gummies to keep my head right.  lol

Got to the 302 and fish a few empty paddies.  Saw a really nice mark, but couldn't raise it.  Before you knew it, it was 7:30pm and 30+ miles to get to the barn.  It was a beautiful sunset at least!



I forgot to mention since we already had the ice and it would have went to waste, we bled out the bonito right away, gilled and gutted and dropped it in the RSW bag.  Probably more than anyone would have done for bonito, but it would have been wasted ice.  When I cleaned the bones though, it was probably the nicest bonito meat I've ever seen!

Well, that was it.  Another long ass run for no Bluefin.  I really am starting to hate these things.  It helped to know that almost everyone only caught bonito and didn't hear of a singly BFT caught.  Well, heard of two caught from 2 boats fishing the pens at 2:00am, but we weren't going to be there that early.  lol

Thanks for reading and until next tide!

[jrodda]

I bet they woulda bit the mad macs if they were running on a big circle hook!

Too bad no bft after some epics reports throughout the week, but glad you got some. Bonito meat is legit.

Hang in there, we're due for a coastal run of bluefin in the next month.

[sasquatch]

How's your back?

[skrilla]

Well cared for bonito make the best sashimi. Can't believe we used to bake em in a soggy gunny sack for hours lol.

[vdisney]

Great read Tom, them bones look legit

[Tim524]

Long day on the water for sure, hows the body after the ride back ?

What's the plan with the Bonito Meat ?