Big Bluefin Tuna on the Littlekolo

[luckyjr21]

We filled up the Littlekolo with gas and headed down to Long Beach to launch from Alamitos Bay around 5:30, headed to nachos bait barge. on the way there I notice the bait tank was overflowing, after a quick inspection we notice it was jammed pack with small pieces of fish and a ton of scales, I guess the crew that went out last time didn't flush the bait tank . Captain says screw it we don't need no stinking bait anyways. we headed towards the east end of Catalina Island, weather was good, so we made great time keeping our eyes peeled just in case we saw any signs of life,
once we arrived to the zone Frankie lets out a madmac on his trolling rod and I begin to do the same I'm trolling with my Fishing Syndicate lupe special rod and a Talica 25 loaded with 130 braid and 200 feet of some fresh 80 pound Izor mono top shot that I had just had my local tackle shop put on a couple days ago, I let it out about 100 yards and as soon as i put in the rod holder the rod loses its bend , What the hell just happened????? i start winding it in and i could tell my madmac was gone i get to the end just to see a horrible sight , all my mono top shot was gone along with my only madmac all that was left was curly tail at the end of my braid, unbelievable I guess someone doesn't know how to tie a proper knot and it costed me my only madMac , Im not going to say which tackle shop did this (yet) I'll decide after a go back to the shop and see how they handle this.
but definitely not the way I wanted to start the morning anyways back to fishing, we are not really seeing any signs of life and no marks on the screen either, out of nowhere we hear Frankies rod go off and we are bit, right off the bat we could tell it's a bigger model, but Frankie battled hard, and we had blood on the deck a nice bluefin over 100 pounds for sure. We continue trolling the area and we find the biggest bait ball i have ever seen just massive with foamers all around jeff runs our trollers right through them over and over again with no biters I I was literally standing behind the rod waiting for it to go off but nada there was big models everywhere. We continue chasing them and after a couple more turns around the foamers i hear one of my favorite sounds in the world, the sound of line being ripped from a reel and we are tight this was a mean one too Me and Jeff take turns on it and it just did not want to die we got it to the boat 5-6 times but as soon as it saw Jeffs ugly mug it turned around and made another run, it was a long hard battle and all along the foamers never stopped going off around us. sure, felt good sticking the gaff into that big bluefin another one over 100 pounds on the littlekolos deck , hell yeah.The weather started to come with white caps and it made almost impossible to find breaking fish from then on, we headed home and kept looking for fish, Jeff spotted a nice foamer on the way that was right on our bow and we ran our trollers right through them a few times for no bitters , the tunas were definitely in a funky mood, content with our catch we called it a day. Another great day aboard the Littlekolo, great Job Captain getting us on the fish and it was a pleasure fishing with you Frankie. pictures and video to follow enjoy !!!