Both Hunter and I were scheduled for day trips on Wednesday but I planted the seed of a possible nite trip with my crew and lo and behold they showed up early enough to do it.. Not to dissapoint I headed south and 2 hours later, jumped on the boat to meet them..weather was looking iffy for Wednesday afternoon and the thought of taking a shot at a sword also appealed to me..left out about 5pm making two unsuccessful sword drifts..conditions were perfect had squid and bait in the lights but obviously not in the spot..the main target was tuna anyway..thus we headed off the the Matterhorn platform and found it D-E-A-D, I mean dead..couldnt even catch a blackfin tuna on a diamond jig..nothing..
Decided to make the run south..first stop would be the ticket..arrived at 2am..rods immediately bent with all the action on jigs the guys could stand..which was good because we needed chum..boxed a deckfull of blackfin..Hans, RJ, Ingemar and Butch are from Amelia Island FL and have to run 70-80 miles to their blackfin holes..they got a kick out of the fact that we were going to use them as bait..chunking worked well..after the second drift it was pretty much a single double or triple on yellowfin..mostly 20-30 pound school sized fish but three 60-70 pounders gave bonus fight time..we had 10 by sun-up and we ended up dragging ballyhoo's picking up a couple more schoolies..total take was a boat limit of 12 yellowfin..we had gutted them and packed them with ice..the meat was a high grade purple..
Hope the Island enjoys them..Hunter had Chad Peltier and a crew of Exxon guys..they were on target for the the same quarry and I radioed Hunter to call him in on the bite..they arrived and made quick work of the school fish before running around the rest of the day..he ended up with 8 yellowfin 20-40 pounds and 5 bull dolphin to 20 pounds..Paradise Outfitters - 985-845-8006
