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S.W.A.T ToadsToadsOnly 4 Jumbos, 3 Cows, 11 tuna in a weekend.
“The Year of the Cow”
“Imagine a pack of wolves stocking its prey they are 100’ from the target. The hungry wolves are in hot pursuit climbing the hill, now 50’ from its fast fleeing target. They are gaining ground and only 25’ from their target you could hear the rapid heart thump and heavy breathing of the group. The issue is the prey is only large enough to feed one of these giant wolves. This is when the Alpha male fights through the pack, it sprints past the other hungry animals and goes airborne on the impact it absolutely destroys the target and swallows it down its gullet.” This is a visual of how it is when a pack of giant tuna destroys your Yummy Flyer on the Kite."
Day 1:
We are skipping our Yummy Flyer when a pack of jumbo bluefin blows up on the flyer and misses. In the mayhem we are all screaming on the top of our lungs, then two fish blow up on the yummy simultaneously and misses, another one with an Ariel attack full body out of the water in hot pursuit and misses. Then the water just absolutely explodes like a landmine on the flyer. We are BIT!!!!!!!!! The Alpha drowns the black flag. BILLY Throttle forward I yell up to the tower!! The kite clip releases like a green stick on “Wicket Tuna” I reel like hell until the line comes tight. HOOKUP!!!!!!! ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ…………………… The fish smokes ¾ the spool on the initial run. I start going to work on this fish switching back and forth with Billy K’s client Phil. Billy K throttles in a circular motion towards the fish so I could gain back what was lost. As a big game angler, I instantly recognize this is not your average run of the mill 150-200 lb the fish is Big… VERY BIG…. It was also the Devil Fish this bastard was mean. The beast battles for about 45 min before the fish settles, the Devil Fishes is dogging us as it was sitting in the thermocline doing what large bluefin likes to do. The fish dog’s me while doing massive headshakes and giant death circles 60-70' down making it feel like I was undergunned with a Talica 50 and a Seeker 3x strong rod. One hour 20 min into the fight I push the reel into full strike on the Talica 50 knowing the longer the fight the larger the hole will be on the fish’s mouth. The fishes death circle gets smaller and smaller as time progress.
Phil and I work this fish hard and we see color, Billy was standing by gaff ready with the 2nd Morita gaff in the holder for backup. Another death circle and my heart drops, the one thing every angler fear. The line goes limp and I drop the rod on the rail and yell ****!! 15-20’ from the boat the hook pulls. . . . There was nothing I was able to do differently. A moment of silence but we know this is not the end. We put the kite up and skip for the next 4 hours with no luck.
We opted to move to another zone and look for a different body of fish. We arrive and losing sunlight fast the sun was starting to set in the horizon, still very optimistic I tell his client Phil “We Never Give Up, Never Say Die!”. Up goes the kite as the sun half past the horizon line, at 8:20 PM as the sun sets Billy messages his wife with the Sat Phone and tells her we lost a big one and we are going home skunked. I still have my eyes glued to the flag and watching the yummy skip perfectly visualizing a blowup in the horizon thinking to myself Come on… Come on….. Sundowner Come on!
5 seconds after his text the water erupts, I yell “WE ARE BIT!!!!” Billy, Phil, and I shell-shocked and wide-eyed, I reel my *** off and the line goes tight we battle the beast into the dark. Another very mean fish hooked on the BK Yummy Flyer while the sunlight disappears into the abyss. We fight this fish with heavier drag than the last fish but it still refuses to die, a little after 10 pm the angry fish comes to color, we stick it with 2 gaff’s and a tail rope as we hoist this behemoth on board you hear a THUD when the body hits the deck. After pulling the hook on the 1st fish victory was much sweeter, Poseidon blessed us with our first cow of the season. We are all stoked out of our minds, we shove the beast in the kill bag, ice it down as we head back to Mission Bay.
The best part about this is now we have located the fish and know where the MEAT of the school is. Good thing Phil booked Billy Keleman for 2 days knowing he only been fishing for a few years taking a charter with him would be the best way speed up the learning curve and was rewarded with a Cow. His largest tuna prior to this trip weighed 50-60lbs. He even said even if we never caught or landed that 2nd fish the knowledge alone was more important than anything. Heck, you never stop learning I even learned a lot while on deck with him.
Billy and I exhausted and still extremely stoked. We knock out on the boat at the landing and opt to get a late start the following day.
Day 2:
On Sunday, Phil brought his buddy Jason and Shaun with him. His friends were like a little kid in a candy store after seeing all the pictures from the day prior and talking to Phil the night before. Their expectations were high, we could not wait to see what today had in store for us.
Arrival at the ZOO:
When we arrived at the grounds around 2:30 P.M to a lit-up meter, the fish finder was marking so many fish it looked like his Simrad electronics was on Demo Mode. Tern birds flying around and dipping low the word must have got out about the bight. All the boats which were fishing Yellowfin the day prior in a different zone were on the big BFT grounds. There were at least 20 Kites being flown in that area. You know what? The boat traffic did not hinder the bight what so ever. We set the kite back and no more than 15 minutes after flying we get a blow-up, then another one, another one…, by this time we are all screaming on the top of our lungs OH SHIT….. DAMN!!!.... Another One….!!! The school blew up on the yummy about 6 times and missed. We flip a ***** and flew our Lewis Fishing Kite back the other way it did it’s job perfectly as we skip right through them again. Another explosion and the flag drowns, ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ……………..!!! HOOKUP!!!!!!! The whole group are relatively new to Trophy hunting, so it was quite the **** show at first. With a little coaching, the whole team was like a well-greased engine. Taking turns tag teaming the fish making sure there was a guy with a fresh arm on the fish pulling hard the whole time. “Don’t let your pride get in front of you, flying the kite is a team effort regardless of how strong you are. All that matters is getting the fish to the boat and when the fish hits the deck”. It’s like a NASCAR pit crew everyone has a job to do.
The fish is up and down dogging the crew in the thermocline, most people hate this part, but this is when I come in clutch. This is my favourite part of the fight, I take the bent but rod out of the holder, start short pumping and beast mode this fish to color. We stick the fish with Three gaffs’ and hoist another BEHEMOTH aboard with a Thud, another cow hits the deck.
FISH #1 DEAD!!!
Don’t dig too deep…
The boys are trying to take pictures Billy runs down and spikes the slob in the brain, I slice the gills and bleed the beast while it sprays the deck in blood. We tell the guys you could take pictures later, we need the kite back up to stick another one.
I get on the controls to and take over the boat, Kite goes up. I climb up the tower take us in the direction of the promised land, while the boys are taking pictures of our Trophy catch. Another 15-20 min goes by HOOKUP!!!!!............... This time Phil, Jason, and Shaun says we want this one we got this, they handled the beast like a pro. The fish gets to color BK digs deep and sticks it with the gaff the fish goes apeshit and sounds back to 80’ with the gaff in its stomach. “It is very important when gaffing these fish you have a second guy on standby as a backup. If the 2nd gaff needs to be stuck in the fish shortly after the first shot when they come in green. If not they will rip your arm out of its socket”. We work this fish back to color making sure 2 Morita Gaffs ended its life.
THUD………….. Another Jumbo hits the deck.
Fish #2 DEAD!!
Insanity, hand feeding the tuna a yummy.
Same goes around, BK back on the tower I let the yummy back we are adjusting the kite and the yummy. WTF the flag is going down? I think we are bit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ****!!!!!!!! I wind down and the fish starts dumping line. The boys make short work on this fish, it gets to color, Shaun does a kamikaze gaff move and launches the fish on deck on his own. This time it was a 50lb grade YFT.
Fish #3 Dead
Kite goes out again… Same deal we are letting line out BK adjusting the yummy, he yells I think we are bit!!!!!!!!!!!! NO ******* WAY!!! The crew winds down on the fish and another bendo. The boys crank this one to the boat fast and another YFT hits the deck.
Fish #4 with a bloody massacre on the deck
Kamikaze Airborne Attack:
Yummy back out, skipping through the zone another 15-20 minutes goes by before we get our next blowup. This was the most insane blow up I have ever seen in my life. Some of you remember those old Wahoo videos of the fish launching itself out of the water and dive bombing the lure from the air? I have always been very intrigued by those videos and wanted to see it in real life one day, never thought I would see this from a BFT. While the yummy is skipping at 11kts this Jumbo goes airborne 3’ in the sky on its way down it annihilates the yummy from the top down. We are all screaming off the top of our lungs as we all saw this insane show from this magnificent beast. The flag goes down drag screaming ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ……………….. FISH ON!!! By this time, we are thinking are you serious! 5 hookups in 1 day on the kite? What a surreal experience.
We work this fish to the boat and sink 2 gaffs in it and hoist our last fish on board. Three Jumbo Bluefin Tuna and 2 Yellowfin Tuna on the deck what a day. This was already a day for the record books.
Fish #5 – Three Jumbos, 2 Yellowfin Tuna DEAD.
The Bloody Massacre:
We troll for another hour or so with no luck BK says hey let’s take the fish out of the kill bag and lay it out on the deck we need some pictures while the light is still out. The guys cut their colt snipers and poppers off as I go to put the rods in the tower lucky we still had a couple tied on. Right when we thought it was over a massive foamer with thousands of fish just ripping the surface, micro bait just flying everywhere out of the water with a full-on foamer. Another boat gets to the foamer first and had a quad hookup. We gun towards it and it was pure mayhem, we deck another 5 fish and leave the fish boiling. Like a murder scene from a Quentin Tarantino movie, Billy’s brand-new parker was covered in red during the mayhem. There was blood from the bow to the stern, blood, on the pilot house, even blood on the tower.
Fish # 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 – Dead in the mayhem.
The best fishing we have experienced in our lives is upon us, there was a part in the day where we scanned the horizon and it seemed like every private boater and charter boat was bent. Get out there and catch a fish of a lifetime. My prediction is when these fish settle in on the squid bite late summer/fall our local overnight trips will look like we are fishing Clarion Island, everyone will be fishing 30 and 50 wide’s on 4X heavy rods. Thank you guys for reading about our amazing journey. If you like to follow my updated fishing feed and my party shenanigans my Instagram is @grindmentality1. Be sure to check out Billykfishing.com he definitely knows his **** and is currently running charters and have detailed videos on Kite fishing and updated fishing numbers on his site.
Go Big Or Go Home
ToadsToadsOnly
