Boudreaux 12/20/07

[MrBill]

Eleven of us took a Thursday start to beat the weather window. Turned out to be a good decision. I met a couple of guys from this board. XS Tackle, and Fishhead56. I enjoyed time with both of them as we got along just fine. Both really nice guys. I might have met another from this board but I'm not sure. If so, speak up. I talked to everyone so if I didn't know who you were, it's because I've never met anyone before this trip.

It's a 197 mile trip to Noble's Clyde Boudreaux. We left on time at 6am. Seas were only 3-4. Along the 11 hour trip, we went from 3-4s to 5-7s to 6-8s and back to 3-4s upon arrival at Boudreaux around 5:30pm. Everybody was trying to bed down knowing we were going to spend all night fishing. At one point the bunk I was in was really making some creaking sounds. We must have hit a rouge wave because I was air born and heard this cracking sound.
Fishhead56 was in the bunk under me and another guy was above me. Fishhead56 told me not to move as he noticed the weld joint next to him had broken. More into that later. Overall the seas didn't affect the Gulf Eagle and it kept up it's pace. The boat is heavy and cuts the seas fairly well.

Upon arrival we started trolling and picked up a couple of nice dolphins. When he set us up for our first drift, I started throwing a shibuki (swim bait) off the bow pulpit. After catching two baby yellowfins I stopped. I hate killing a little YF for chum. Jigging blackfins was no problem and the chunking started.

I got hit right away and put one in the box. Reloaded another chunk, hooked up and put another in the box. Reloaded again, another hookup and the third in the box. This all happened very fast (first hour). These were nice sized tuna and mad. They all fought hard. My arms were burning as I like to use heavy drag settings.

I sent off another chunk and hooked the fourth fish. XS Tackle was next to me and told me "Looks like your going a little lighter on the drag this time". I turned to him as said "Watch this". I know he didn't mean it, but took it as if I was being called a Pussy. I pushed the lever to full drag and parked the grip on the rail. I had the fish to color but I couldn't move him even in low gear. I was using 50lb high test big game and line popped before they stick him.

The Capt was on the upper deck as I lost the fish near the bow pulpit. He barked out something about to much drag. He told the deckhand to check my drag and the replied to the Capt that I was using 60 to 70 pound of drag. Well that's not right as a Tiagra 30 can't produce that much. It kinda pissed me off so I went into the cabin. Next thing I know the Capt came down to have a chat with me. He hates loosing fish which I understand, but at that point there was only four fish in the box. We shook hands and I decide to pull out the biggest tackle I brought with me. My weakest link was a 130lb windon. More on that later.

To shorten this up, the bite slowed down real fast. It was never utter chaos and there was some inexperienced guys that thought they could fish two lines at once. It was one tangle after another. I lost three wind-ons because they had to be cut off. The tuna never showed us a topwater sign. I only saw two bust the surface all night. I should have some time jigging. Two big YF's were caught on jigs by mistake on a noodle rod setup. The deckhand was using a medium weight trevalla to catch blackfins for chum. Twice he hooked up on 100 pound size tuna. He passed the noodle stick off to customers, and the very, very, very long battles took place.

All the tuna were of good size but it was not a hot bite all night. You had to work for them and when you got a hookup, it was a battle. I saw numerous battles go on for an hour or more. Four people caught 80% of the fish. Sometimes you just can't find a bite. It's happened to me before and it happened to others this trip.

We had 21 or 22 yellowfins after 12 hours of fishing. I saw 6 that were 100 pounds or over. Fishhead56 had the biggest one. Before he cut it up we put the tape to him. He was 57 inches from his nose to the fork in the tail with a 41 inch girth. That's a 127 pound fish. My biggest taped off at 106#s.

Overall it was a fun trip. I had a good time and the seas were nice to us for fishing and the long ride home. Here's some pics.

[MrBill]

Here's some more pics. I took a bunch and will weed them out with time. I might add that personally I have a few things bother me. Number one on my list is poor gaffing. The last time I went on this boat the gaffing was excellent. This time I give them a "F". I joked with one of deckhands. I told him "you guys must think the loin is the head". They worked very hard so I will give credit where credit is due.

[gimmedeal]

MrBill, is that you in the last pic? The fingers look familiar. Sounds like a pretty good trip. I was lookin at some of the migration charts for BF. What do you think the chances are that someone will hook up on a B(blue)F around this rig in the next couple of months. I'm scheduled to make a trip on this boat and the Pelican Jan 18-20.

Fred

[MrBill]

Originally Posted by gimmedeal

MrBill, is that you in the last pic? The fingers look familiar. Sounds like a pretty good trip. I was lookin at some of the migration charts for BF. What do you think the chances are that someone will hook up on a B(blue)F around this rig in the next couple of months. I'm scheduled to make a trip on this boat and the Pelican Jan 18-20.

Fred

Yep, those are my fingers. See that nice loin gaff. Bring some heavy gear. You will get a lot more fishing time in if everyone has the gear to pour on drag. We lost a bunch of drifts because of hookups on noodle rods. The rig is in 8000' of water so anything is possible. I saw a huge tuna go under the boat lights one time. Their was one point where they wouldn't take anything. They were cruising under the boat in plain view. This was around 5am. Poor Fishhead's rod is ruined. It was a new rod. Now it looks like a boat rod from a party boat. The gimbal destroyed, the grip is no longer round. It looks like somebody flattened it out with a hammer from the rail damage. That big tuna made hamburger meat out that rod. It also made him a very tired angler. The fish were mean. I think only one came in without a hard battle.

[gimmedeal]

I'll keep that in mind when I gear up. Usually I'm chunking with 60 or 80 fluoro on top but If the trip goes, might step that up a notch. Like the crocs.

Fred

[Bret]

Great report Mr Bill. sounds like you caught your share.

[MrBill]

Originally Posted by Bret

Great report Mr Bill. sounds like you caught your share.

Three was it for me. I was done in an hour. Not that I didn't try any more. I went cold for the next 9 hours. Having to hold off a movement during that time frame didn't help. It's hard to concentrate when you have to go. I almost used a five gallon bucket, but didn't feel comfortable doing my business in front of people I had just met.

The drag fishing God's punished me the rest of the trip. I did try to jig down deep. For the heck of it I sent down a glow shimano flatside jig until the 665W hit the end of the spool. There wasn't any current at the time. That jig was glowing in about 1400 ft of water. I did this twice, slowly retrieving with no results. As usual, blackfins were plentiful. Bait for chunking was not a problem.

There was an older gentleman (74) that I intended to hand one off. I hate seeing someone get skunked. He was really nice and had a great sense of humor. He made a horrible mistake by putting 3-in-one oil on his drag right before we started fishing. He asked me if there was anything I could do to help solve his problem. It was 40 year old Penn 2/0. It was helpless. I couldn't get it to produce more than 3 pounds of drag after messing with it.

[STx Fisherman]

Nice report Mr. Bill....and congrats on the great trip!
We were hoping you would make it to breakfast...we wanted to hear the stories.

Sounds like that broken weld on the bunk could be a pretty bad situation...good thing no one was hurt.

I thought that Clyde Boudreaux was more like about 175 miles from Port Aransas. I'm thinking about getting a Cape Horn 31 ft. boat...and if Boudreaux is 190+ miles away....I will not have the range.

[BretABaker]

can you be specific as to which bunk that is? i weigh in around 275, and don't want to have it snap and smash the guy under me......nor do i want it to break above me!

Sounds like an interesting trip. Did you see any sharks? I'd like to get 3 YF then try to float a blackfin out for a mako or hammerhead.

How long did you guys troll for and what rigs did everyone troll with? I'll need to pick stuff up if we plan on trolling. Thanks

[MrBill]

Originally Posted by BretABaker

can you be specific as to which bunk that is? i weigh in around 275, and don't want to have it snap and smash the guy under me......nor do i want it to break above me!

Sounds like an interesting trip. Did you see any sharks? I'd like to get 3 YF then try to float a blackfin out for a mako or hammerhead.

How long did you guys troll for and what rigs did everyone troll with? I'll need to pick stuff up if we plan on trolling. Thanks

In the center of the boat is two (triple stacks). The stack to wards the bow is the one to avoid.

I didn't see any mako's. The nice thing was a lack of cuda's. Only one was caught. No lost jigs to cuda's.

We trolled for about 30 minutes waiting for the sun to set. I had some nice Marlin lures with me, but when I saw what rods they were using, I opted to not use them. The boat keeps some on board. Their not great, but for thirty minutes, just keep them at home. I was standing in the back just watching during the trolling. Let the guys who have never caught a dolphin do the catching.

Here's a pic of the broken weld joint and the temporary fix.