It has been very windy so far this October. We have made it offshore inbetween the weather days to take advantage of the tuna bite. On Friday Capt. Bob Kenney and myself took out the Jacob and Mathew McNulty crew. They consisted of a bunch of friends from around the country that were able to get together for a bachelor party in New Orleans. Well, there is an up and down side for this crew. The up side is they had a great time in New Orleans on Thurs. night--the down side is they were about 4 hours late for the charter on Friday morning. They said they would be running a little late...I figured no problem the fish will more than likely wait and with the way the fish had been biting that week, they were sure to get their fill. As luck would have it the best bite happened early Fri. morning and never turned back on for my crew. We pulled out from the dock at 10:00 a.m. and got to the tuna honey hole about an hour later. Luckily for the bachelor his first cast resulted in a 100lb. yellow fin tuna on a frenzy popper. This fish did not take 20 feet of drag and we got him to the boat in 4 minutes. I told him it was meant to be. A fish this size on spinning gear can sometimes be a lot to handle. That was it for our crew. After numerous bonita and a couple of sharks. The tuna bite was over for us. Capt. Bobs crew had two black fin. Sat. was a wind day--No Fishing. On Sunday I had the pleasure of taking out Monty Weeks. Monty booked the trip several weeks ago in hopes of getting offshore and chasing tuna but knowing how the weather can be this time of year he also said, no matter what the weather is, we are fishing for something. I said "Thank You". Well, of course the wind blew so we went red fishing. It was somewhat slow but we did manage to catch a few. The wind slowed down some so we bounced outside the jettie to some shallow water structures (25 feet) catching and releasing a good amount of red snapper. On Monday I had the Chuck Swartz crew from Texas. Our plan once again was to go after Tuna. Back out to the same area we left them on Friday in hopes they would still be there. When a front comes thru like the one on Fri. night with high winds and low temps. I knew there was a good chance the tuna bite wouldn't be wide open like last week. We got there and all the conditions were perfect. The only problem was, the fish had moved. We ended up with one small blackfin. We changed our tactics after 5 hours of trying to make something happen and fell back on the sure thing. They guys caught their limit of Amberjack (6) and went 4 for 7 on Cobia. Two of the cobia were about 55lbs. which certainly made these 1st timers day. Most people just don't realize how big a fish 50+ lbs. is. The tuna bite is on, of course some days will be better than others. We've got open days this month and next so if your looking to put some meat on the table this is a good time to go. The big wahoo will start to show up before long as well.
Capt. Damon Mcknight
Super Strike Charters
1 800 318 1720
www.superstrikecharters.com
