[MrBill]

Very interesting last 3 days. I broke a couple of personal records. Cold front hit us hard about 3:45AM causing lighting and steady 30 to 35 KT winds. Seas went from nice to un-fishable conditions. That was a tough 135 NM ride home. I'll give a better report later but my wife is having a birthday party for me this afternoon and have a lot to do. I need sleep real bad.

I arrived home last night about 1:00AM and have a few hundred pounds of roughed out YF's in cooler's that needs attention. I also have a major dry out of tackle to mess with as salt water invaded coolers. I've never had igloos fill up with salt water spray in my life.

Five people catching 14 YFs could have been a lot more productive if two wouldn't have spent so much time throwing poppers on a none top water bite night. I shot some PICS with 35mm film and will get it processed and post PICS at some point.

 

[Pope]

So it was a chunk bite? I love feeling them pick up the bait. Congrats and sorry for the poor conditions.

 

[ksong]

MrBill,
Your boat must be bigger than the Big E.
Did anybody try jigging ?
After two Big E trips were cancelled two weeks in a low, my bad luck continues. I fished on the Doris Mae, a 100' tuna party boat, on Fri/Sat.
I jigged at the bow, but the bow area got crowded with jig fishermen, I moved down toward the stern. A school of big bluefin tuna moved under the boat and alll four guy who were fishing at the bow hooked up with bluefins and I had to watch them fight. They landed two bluefin, 80 lbs and 140 lbs, but one bluefin estimated close to 300 lbs was lost near boatside.
I did OK by catching 2 yellowfin and 4 longfin on jigs, but I was looking for a big bluefin on jigs on this trip.
Next time.

 

[bighead]

Happy Birthday Mr Bill! Have a great day and post up those pics, Bert

 

[Deep_Sea_Gull]

All right. A fisherman that is not scared to go fishing. Gotta love it.
Happy birthday MrBill. We'll wait for the full report.

 

[Gunsmoke]

Nice spike at the nearest buoy that night.

 

[STx Fisherman]

Happy Birthday Mrbill. Can't think of a better birthday than catching a YFT...too bad it was rough though...sounds like you had another adventure.

 

[Snagged]

Happy birthday MrBill.
Waiting for your full report and pictures.

 

[MrBill]

I stopped off at Roy's around 5:30 Thursday afternoon on my way down to Port A. As I was entering, my lawyer was walking out. We started talking and he was booked on a 48 hour trip on the Gulf Eagle out of Deep Sea Headquarters. He needed to stall some time as he was picking up his personel deckhand at the airport in two hours. (His son) His son goes to college in Dallas and has worked the past three summers as a deckhand at DSH.

I was supposed to go out on a private boat. I got a call while we were eating dinner. Somebody had ripped off the electronics on the boat and my trip was in serious jeopardy. Then my lawyer had two of his group whip out because of the weather forecast. To shorten things I ended up on the Gulf Eagle with an interesting group of five old friends.

Etan, your buddy is a nice guy. He's bound to remember me. Next time you talk to him, ask him about the guy who screamed out "That's how you kick a tuna's Ass" every time one of his tunas hit the deck. That was me. I put the hammer to the drag as I had a bet that I couldn't bring one in under 15 minutes. The first one took me about 22 minutes. I changed tackle. The second one was flopping around in 7 minutes. Right after that one I had another on and put him on the deck right at 5 minutes. That was three YF under an hour's time for me. A new personal best. Those three were nice size. About a 80 pound average with one going 103.

Etan, tell me if this is your buddy. The first picture is him around 3am when it was around 90 degrees. Both him and the deckhand were sweating. I was dripping wet myself. The next photo will be around 4am and the temp is now 50 degrees with a 35 knot wind and rain. Your buddy is on the far right and the same deckhand is wearing a yellow hood. The third photo will be him tell someone how the cow ate the cabbage.

!!!!!!! I have to resize all my photos. I shot 35mm film and the photo place burned me a CD and all the pics are too large to post. I can only put up a 800x800 pic. This might take me a while. I also have people knocking at my back door as I gave up on tuna processing. I brought back two 162 qt igloos full of loins. I'm tired of being a packing plant and I'm very tired. I'm giving it away.

 

[DeepBlueGulf]

Happy Birthday MrBILL!

Glad you got out and landed some YFT! Looking forward to seeing the pics.

Tom - DBG

 

[ksong]

Happy Birthday MrBILL!

Glad you got out and landed some YFT! Looking forward to seeing the pics.

Tom - DBG
MrBill, use www.photobucket.com They automatically resize your pictures.

 

[Bret]

Happy Bday. looking forward to the report!!

 

[Minnow]

What size photo will be easy for you to post?
I can incrase the size.

 

[MrBill]

Etan, is this your friend. If so, he's an old salt that loves to fish. He told me he's going on another 48 hour next weekend. I hope I still get excited about tuna fishing at his age.

 

[MrBill]

Ksong,
I know you are a jigging nut and interested in the jigging on this trip. First off, the blackfins were almost non existing. We stopped off at two rigs and loaded up on hardtails for bottom fishing. The crew did not want to use live bait for the tuna bite.

Some of us started jigging for blackfins to use as chunk. We couldn't catch one for fifteen minutes, so dead mackerel were put on hooks to get some action. The biggest problem until the storm arrived was catching a blackfin to make bait.

To be honest, I was probably the only guy on the boat with intentions of catching a YF on a jig. The problem with me was that someone made me a sizable bet that I couldn't hog in a YF under 15 minutes. So, I was chunking and getting hooked up every drift. I felt sorry for two guys near the bow who I have never met. They saw me hook up three straight times ( I was in between them) and had long faces. So I felt sorry for them and hooked one up for one guy the next drift and hooked a second one for the other guy the next drift.

By the time I was ready to jig, the storm arrived. I set up one of my group with a tuna max and torsa combo. The guy had never tuna fished before. He is a professional hunting guide and works on the king crab and salmon boats in Alaska to make a living when he is not hunting. I've haven't seen him in ten years. He went nuts catching YF's. Very hard core. He hadn't dropped the long smith jig down more than 50 feet before he had a hit. It was a very small YF, about 20 pounds. I think it turned into chunk. He then helped another angler muscle in a YF that had been on for over an hour.

My intentions were jig the whole second night. That never happened. The skipper called us into a safety meeting around 8am. The conditions were very poor and the storm was worse than he had expected. The fact that the last tuna took 3 hours and 15 minutes to get to the boat was a big factor.

Four tuna got hooked up on the last drift. and it was a bear to bring them in. The last drift the boat was rolling real bad and drifting at a pace that made it almost impossible to get a tuna to gaff. We were in 12 footers with a steady 35 knot wind. The last fish was handed off to 8 different anglers who gave up. It finally was gaffed.

I might also add that as far as gaffing goes, these deckhands were great. I only saw one body gaff and that was the one that was on for 3 hours. All of mine were stuck right in the gills. These guys were awesome dockhands and did not want to loose any fish. I think we boated a total of 27 YF's with only two break offs.

 

[bpitcher]

Glad to hear you had an awesome trip

Brad

 

[MrBill]

Glad to hear you had an awesome trip

Brad

It was fun. I never thought I would go on a head boat out of Port A. I think the Gulf Eagle is about 68 feet. We were the only boat offshore at the floaters that night. No Big E in site. In fact, I never saw another fishing boat the whole trip.

We fished boomvang for about 5 hours then ran to Nansen to fish. It was covered with cudas. I think we only put two YFs in the boat. When we returned back to Boomvang the second time the lighting show and rain began. The crew and the Capt. were very serious about catching fish. No messing around, all business and very busy at all times. I'll definitely go out with these guys again.

I'm going to bed. I have serious heartburn. I had a Mexican food craving and ate 6 jalapenos. That combined with a last minute food stop at the grocery store in Port A didn't help. The only food I took on board was 6 double meat double cheese microwave hamburgers. They sucked. Major grease. One of our group was an ER doctor and he gave me something to help with the heartburn onboard. Thank God for his little black bag. He had enough medical stuff to take care of anything that would have happened on the trip.

The Gulf Eagle needs a new crapper. That thing is disgusting. The whole ride back in I couldn't sleep because I had to take a crap. I went outside to let it go on the deck but I couldn't find anything to hold onto. The saltwater spray was like a couple of firehoses on me. The wind was howling so loud that if I would have screamed nobody would have heard me. If I would have gone overboard nobody would have seen me as I was the only one without a bunk. My fishing tackle took up my whole bunk.

When we got back to port the first I did was go inside the office to take care of my problem. I was the fourth guy in line. To make matters worse, I walked over to the portacans next to the ferry landing. There was no TP. I did my thing and walked into the boat ramp water to clean myself.

 

[ksong]

MrBill,
After I caught a tuna on 5' Japanese Smith rod on Sunday, I start to think the short rod is not adequate on a big party boat.
It is fun to use a such a light and short rod to jig and fight fish, but when tuna charges under the boat, I am not comfortable at all.
I think 7' - 8' rod is more suitable for party boat situations, especially tuna are near the top like you experience on the Gulf Coast.
Many guys believe it is hard to fight a tuna on such a long rod, but it is not bad because you can you the rail on the party boat.

 

[North Texas Fiberglass]

Mr. Bill,

Was Capt. Keith at the helm? How about Tony as a deckhand? Those two guys know how to fish!

I agree with you about the facilities on the GE. They do suck. I've had to do the entire 48 hr trip without having to use the bathroom because I just refused to use that messy head.

Glad you guys caught some good fish in spite of the foul weather. Lots of guys are eager to go out in 10-12's. That is not my cup of tea at all. It isn't necessarily the rough boat ride, but it makes fishing almost impossible. The boat ride I can handle. But trying to stand up against a 100# YFT in those seas is almost impossible. Especially if you have to chase the tuna up to the pulpit on the GE. Very slippery at best. You add rain and big rollers, then it is even worse.

 

[MrBill]

Uncle Russ,
I just answered your PM with a PM. I'm not sure if you want to try to get a 75-100lb tuna to the boat in 5 minutes, but if you do as I wrote you, it will work.

North Texas Fiberglass,
yes Capt. Keith was the man. Tony and Chris were the deckhands. Great deckhands and great gaffers. Chris was in shock when he saw me hook up and I called him for a gaff in 5 minutes. I did it to him twice. That bow pulpit on the boat is dangerous. I scoped it out as I boarded the boat and noticed the big anchor with sharp edges sticking out. I went around that thing at least 10 times with 30 pounds of drag. That's not easy with that big chain laying on the pulpit.

Ksong,
This gulf of Mexico fishing is going to be different for you. There are tons of 65 to 120 pound YF's at the floaters. Every trip is different, but nobody had been to boomvang in two weeks because of the bad weather the past two weeks. I could see them running in the lights about 20 feet down.

Maybe they were eating little blacfins because we had a tough time catching a blackfin. The ones we did jig up were tiny. About 2 to 5 pounds. Lots of dolphin out there also. Big 20 to 30 pounds were running in the boat lights.

The problem with the party boats is that they run up to the floater and start a drift. There is always a hot spot within 25 yards of the floater. Once the boat drifts passed the hot bite spot it will drift until all the people get thier fish on the deck. Every now and then a hookup will occur in the middle of the drift. People using light tackle really screw it up. Spending 45 minutes on a 75 pound fish is to long. Maybe I'm a little impatient, but I like pressure fishing.

Jigging on a party boat for you will be hard as you drift off the floaters. You have a good chance jigging close to the floater, but odds decrease when you drift a couple of miles waiting for people with light long rods bringing in their fish.

I not bragging, but I could have put 10 in the box in the 6 hours of fishing we did that night. I have a chunking technique that is killer. It takes a well tuned reel but it hoods up every time. It also tends to piss off other fisherman as they watch you hook up every time you put a chunk out.

I try and put a some more pics tonight. I have to call up my friends and ask for permission. I'm not sure they want their face on the internet. I'm supposed to receive some pics from my lawyer but as of now they have not been emailed to me. I had him take a classic. I think it is very funny, and hopefully some people on this board will see the humor of the pic when I post it.

When I had it done Capt Keith saw me do it. At first he was pissed until I told him the story behind the purpose of the pic. He started laughing and though it was great. We became buddys after that conversation. He'll remember me for a while.