Trout-Tuna-For.Me
07-14-2010, 01:46 PM
This trip was a lot like kgselect's trip.....lots of trolling with too few jig strikes and a couple bait fish at each stop. I think everyone managed to catch at least one albacore on this trip and some with a total of five. We'd all be looking for signs of fish and once in a while we'd see the tuna jumping and head that way, but as soon as the skipper (Art Taylor) said to start a chum line the fish disappeared down deep and maybe a couple stayed and hit a troll line. There was a few stops where maybe 6 or 7 bait fish hit the deck but you had to have your 'dine hit the water right after someone yells HOOKUP or the rest of the fish go and hide. It seems that the hot troll lure color now is green/white or blue/white....not the black/purple like in the past couple weeks. 15, 20, or 25 lb test with 1/0 size hooks seemed to work the best with the 'dines. If you can't get your bait on the water fast enough a 1/2 oz slide sinker will definately help as the fish make the dive. I tried yo yo-ing jigs, tossing a swin bait on the slide, and even going lighter with a 12 lb fluorocarbon leader, nothing really helped to get hooked up.
I was getting bummed out but didn't want to give up, spending 3 days on the water with zero tuna with my number on it, until the last few hours of fishing on the trip I finally hooked up on a troll fish, cranked it in as fast as I could, threw down my trolling rig, grabbed one of my bait rigs with weight, pinned a 'dine to it, tossed it out and about 10 seconds after the 'dine hit the water FRESH ONE ! Lucky for me the albacore took off to the front of the boat and 20 minutes later it was on the deck. Everyone seeing that bait fish was saying it was definately jackpot material. And yes, I did make first place JP with that fish, so the trip turned out better than expected.
Art said the farthest we went out was 160 miles. There were many smaller schools of albacore out there and many balls of bait swimming around the areas, but the tuna just weren't that hungry. Total albie count for the trip was about 50......no bluefin or yellowtail.
Art and his crew worked very hard to get the fish we got so I tipped accordingly, especially after winning first place JP.
I'd say sometime in the next couple weeks all those albacore will be more eager to bite and the counts will definately get back to where they were a week ago.
Sorry, no pics since there wasn't much to be clicking at, although my buddy did get one of me with the JP fish....I'll have to have him give me his cam so I can upload it into my pc.
The tuna season has just started..............like Arnold says..........ALLL BE BAWKK !
TTFM
I was getting bummed out but didn't want to give up, spending 3 days on the water with zero tuna with my number on it, until the last few hours of fishing on the trip I finally hooked up on a troll fish, cranked it in as fast as I could, threw down my trolling rig, grabbed one of my bait rigs with weight, pinned a 'dine to it, tossed it out and about 10 seconds after the 'dine hit the water FRESH ONE ! Lucky for me the albacore took off to the front of the boat and 20 minutes later it was on the deck. Everyone seeing that bait fish was saying it was definately jackpot material. And yes, I did make first place JP with that fish, so the trip turned out better than expected.
Art said the farthest we went out was 160 miles. There were many smaller schools of albacore out there and many balls of bait swimming around the areas, but the tuna just weren't that hungry. Total albie count for the trip was about 50......no bluefin or yellowtail.
Art and his crew worked very hard to get the fish we got so I tipped accordingly, especially after winning first place JP.
I'd say sometime in the next couple weeks all those albacore will be more eager to bite and the counts will definately get back to where they were a week ago.
Sorry, no pics since there wasn't much to be clicking at, although my buddy did get one of me with the JP fish....I'll have to have him give me his cam so I can upload it into my pc.
The tuna season has just started..............like Arnold says..........ALLL BE BAWKK !
TTFM