Bluefin Fishing with Tombo and Rodney (9/23)

[Latimeria]

Got a late call asking if I wanted to join Thomas on a BFT trip.  The fleet stunk the day before, but Tom scratched 3 and should have had 10 more.

I had high hopes but know how that goes.  Instead, I was just ready to catch up with some old friends.

Morning was spectacular overlooking Downtown. (Not downtown Vista mind you)



Filled up with bait and headed out.  The sunrise just kept getting better!



I noticed Thomas was loaded with Rainshadow Rods courtesy of Nikki.



I was surprised he didn't go where my buddy and I saw the biomass of BFT, but he headed to the 302.  It was loaded with bait, birds, and mammals including whales.



We baited, Trolled, and tried about everything with no success, so we moved on to where he got his first fish the day before.



No life anywhere except a handful of small bait balls, then we started metering some deep tuna marks.  Absolutely no sign at the surface.

We were using a variety of trollers in case the Yellowfin were around and my rod was the first to go.  Absolute blind strike and almost shocked me.

Not big and Thomas even swung it over without gaffing.  Not quite a football, but not quite much bigger.  LOL



Ironically, my first tuna of the season.  Hopefully we could limit out soon and head back early!  (wishful thinking)



Rodney summed up the next 5 hours...



After trolling for hours we finally found the tuna.  I saw one well over 200# slam the surface and it got my blood pumping!  Everything from 20-100 pounds were jumping around, but skittish as hell.  Sink out soon as you got close, but we did have opportunities.



Then the boats showed up.  Like every moron you could imaging.  Just run and gunning right through the schools and spooking everything in a 2 miles square radius.  I know I get mad at these fools, but I'm a saint compared to Thomas.  That guy was about to have a mental moment at one point, so we went to find some other biters.

We found some and had one shot at them, but we should have had a bait ready.  Instead we were casting poppers and colt snipers into them not realizing they were going to go right next to the boat.

Oh well, it was snotty out and getting late so we called it.

Fun trip with two fun guys.  We sacrificed Rodney at the ramp to talk to people n how our day went while we unloaded the boat... Poor Rodney...  hahahaha



Well, it was a great trip and at least I got the tuna skunk off of 2025.  I'll take little victories at this point.

Thanks for reading!

[Tim524]

Glad you got the Skunk off, still a great day when in good company

[jrodda]

Better than nothing, nice wiping off the tuna skunk for the year. Nice seeing some volume though.

[Dark_Knight_9C1]

Great that you got one. Must have been awesome seeing the big ones around.

- Keith

[sasquatch]

You think that's a nice sunrise? You should see them in my downtown.

[Latimeria]

You think that's a nice sunrise? You should see them in my downtown.

I need to check if you're still around every now and then.  Glad to see you still stalking these weeds.  lol