J.G.
First off, I can't believe you didn't turn around or give up. That having buckets of salt water hitting you in the face all day sucks. I've tried swimming goggles and diving masks. None of them work as they all fog up. I was on a boat years ago on a day like that when one time the pulpit buried itself so deep that we almost flipped over. Everything that wasn't under a hatch was gone except the guy steering the boat. I was holding on to the side of the center console and the next thing I saw was a wall of water that took me and two others out past the outboard engine.
Some days, there is no such thing as a dry spot on a boat. (unless it's a nice convertible sportsfisherman) I always think it's funny when going out in a center console and someone boarding asks "I don't want to get wet, put me in a dry spot". Yea buddy, the seas are 4-5 and you want to stay dry. Stay home or come along and get wrinkle skin with the rest of us.
We all under estimate the power of water. You must have been one beat puppy when you got back to the dock. At least you caught a couple on nice eating YF's. I also like your two rules of combat fishing. That's why I don't bay fish or fresh water fish. If it can't pull you out of the boat, I don't want to catch it.
This is a little late posting, but better late than never. Point man,Gary and I left out of Freeport at 7 am on the 9th headed for BoomVang to try the yellowfin. Bouyweather was calling 2-3s out to tequila and 3-4s at Boomvang. After clearing the jetties it became very obvious that the 2-3s they were calling must have been in some where else because it sure was'nt what we found. 4-5s would have been a closer call. The good thing at least what we initialy thought was good was the waves were spaced far apart and were rolling with very little wind to break them over. So off we went. Tenacious was just coming out of a repower and was running strong. The waves were at a perfect intervel to make going very very wet. We would crest a roll and stick the nose in the next... putting a ton of water over the bow. This was by far the wettest trip i have ever been on. We were a boat 50% of the time and a submarine the other 50% of the time.Thank god for rule bilge pumps they worked over time. Normaly 3000rpm will get me 25-27 kts with moderate seas and loaded to fish. On this day 3000 was getting 12-15 and a good portion of time less than 12 after coming out of spearing a wave. Our normal 4 hr trip took us 10!!! We got to BoomVang about 7 pm with a few stops to work a shrimper and to transfer fuel. The fishing part of this story is a short one... not a single black fin. we could'nt even paint a blackfin on the fish finder they just was'nt there. we did boat 2 nice yellowfin one at 76lbs after being bled and gutted and another larger that we did not weigh. my guess is it was at or just short of 90. the bite only lasted about an hour and then was done for the night. The next day when we headed in we thought we would get a good ride because of the fight we had the day before.WROOONG!!! All the way back we would top a wave surf down its face only to spear the next in the back, bogging us down to almost a crawl and then fight our way back on top just to repeat!!! 50% boat 50% sub!!! We got back in to bridge bait about 4 pm just beating a front that realy soaked the area. Over all the trip was great. We caught a few bonita and few cuda lost a big dolphin at the boat and landed two good tuna. The boat ran great and the crew was the best. Can't wait to do it again
