Another series of successful trips is on the books. The fishing is a good as it gets right now. Most days we are done tuna fishing with our self imposed boat limit anywhere from 12-1:00 in the afternoon. I started out this series with a trip like I just mentioned with the James Bozeman crew in from Texas. It was a day nothing could go wrong the herring where more than willing to bite. I think we put four dozen in the boat without moving the boat once. All you had to do is put the sibiki in the water up to the swivel and pull out 2-5 herring. From there it was off to what I thought was going to be a one stop spot. But the porpoise were just too thick. We hooked two and had six or so baits ripped off the hooks so we made a short run to what would become my rig of choice for the next several days. Upon arrival it was on fire. There was not many fish busting but every bait out was just about an instant hookup.
It wasn't insane since I had time to clip the lines in the outriggers but it still very good. We quickly seven yellows in the boat and shut it down early to go chase some daytime swords. You know the bite is good and everyone is happy and it's 12:30 and the fish are eating everything you put in the water and they elect to go chase something else. No sense being greedy. We made a move to try for a daytime sword but the green eyed sharks would not leave us alone. So we packed it up and headed in.
The following day I had James Shaw and crew in for hopefully a tuna slaughter. The day started off not to bad but just enough chop to make the bait difficult to see on the surface. But I soon picked up a pod of herring and we quickly filled the well with more than enough baits for the day. I made a beeline back to where I was the day before and it was on just like the previous day. Except it was just singles at first which was fine since no one in the crew had caught yellowfins before.
But after two yellowfin hit the boat and everyone had a chance to pull on one. The fish turned on big time and it was doubles and triples until the 8th tuna hit the deck. It was like work as soon as that 8th yellow was in the boat there was a sigh of relief that they could finaly go home. They didn't even go into overtime since it was only noon. If we wouldn't of lost a few then we could have been done by about 10:30 or so. We elected to not try for the swords and went straight to the house. The next day the weather keep me at the dock and doing boat maintenance.
The following day the weather was still a little bit of a factor and throw that in with it being a Saturday. I just couldn't put it together at all. I didn't go back to where I had been putting a hurting on the tuna since a huge cell was sitting over the rig. So I went to the east only to find dirty water and sharks. Thankfully I had a group that I have fished with several times so it took some of the sting out of a ZERO day. It's the first blank that I can remember in a long time. It was hard to swallow after being on top of the fish for a few days. But now I am mad at them and they will pay the following day.
With the poor performance from the day before, I was ready to kill some fish for Butch Cardanes and Travis. The weather was perfect the bait was perfect and the fishing was perfect. We discussed getting a couple of tuna and then spending the rest of the day daytime swordfishing. When we were a half mile from the rig we could see the yellowfin going nuts chasing bait. I put out baits and had a triple of two yellowfin and a dolphin on the popper. We lost one of the yellows but at least we got the other one and the dolphin. We picked away at them for awhile to only put another yellow and a blackfin in the boat along with another nice dolphin. We had plenty of shots but our hookup ratio was not the best. That would all change later in the day as the one fish we needed to catch we did. I was kind of getting antsy to go and search for a sword but we tried one more rig to only find short yellows and cudas. Finaly the word was given to go hit the swords. The JL audio system was turned up and off we went. After getting rigged up the first drop was a immediate swing and a miss on a sword. We repositioned and droped again only to catch a green eyed shark. But the third drop was the charm. As soon as the bait hit the bottom a sword was whacking the bait. After a couple of whacks with his bill the line just went slack. Butch caught up with the sword about four hundred feet off the bottom and the fight was on. It took a little over an hour to get the swordfish to the surface. It wasn't a monster but it weighed out at 112lbs on the scale at Crypress Cove. But with it being the first daytime sword for me in the Gulf it was more than sufficient. It caused such a stir that the tuna and dolphin were almost left on the dock and forgotten about. Here are some pictures from that trip minus the tuna and dolphin. We tried the daytime thing the following day and had one confirmed swordfish bite but we couldn't come tight to it. Now for the pictures.
Can anyone guess what's in the 32oz cup in my hand. Anyway that's a wrap up of the last several days down in Venice.
