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Well I have been trying to do an overnight trip for several months now.  Had a few planned but canned them all as the weather windows fell apart.  Saw a weather window Friday-Saturday (22-23 June 2007) and gathered up a crew of me, Lanie, son Michael Jr., Ken, another Mike, and Matt.  After finding a bit cheaper gas at Fort Monroe ($2.94) we topped off at 1030 am and headed to the Norfolk Canyon in hunt of the break.

Here is our video report for our first over-nighting trip. 

Overnighting Norfolk Canyon 22-23 Jun 07 Video.  (Video not currently available, please check back)

 We decided to start on the south wall of the canyon and we put our 9 lines spread out in as it went from 69 to 73 degree clear blue water.  Put 6 numbers in a hat and everyone drew a number to determine the cranking order.  With 6 folks on the boat, my feeling is this is the fairest way to set the order in case everyone doesn’t get a chance to crank.

We trolled hard covering lots of ground around the canyon, south of the canyon, north of the canyon, cold side, hot side, edge, deep all the way to sunset with 2 mahi in the boat brought in by Lanie and Ken.

Lanie's Favorite Fish!

Ken get's one too

As the sun began to set, we moved over the middle of the canyon and drifted a bit with our tracks on to see what direction and speed the drift was going to be for the night.  We we doing 1.3 knots in a SE direction which ended up drifting smack down the middle of the canyon and right out the mouth.  As the evening progressed, the winds settled and out speed slowed to 0.8 knots.  We covered 9 miles during the night. 

Broke out the glow sticks and big red died squid bought from the Asian market (cheaper than bait stores).  (Note from Lanie:  If you try to get some of the big squid, and don’t see it out, ask if they have any large squid.  It is often kept in the backroom, as it isn’t always in demand and takes up a lot of space in the front store.)  I tried a rig I saw on the TV show, Sportfishing Magazine where they used a 250 lb mono leader and a 3 inch tag end pushed through the mantle to keep the squid upright.  Very simple rig no doubt but the tag end didn’t always stay in so might try a different rig next time.  

Big Squid

We put a 4 line spread out on Tiagra 50W, 2 on balloons and 2 straight down attaching 2 green and 2 red glow sticks with 10 to 12 oz weights.  Tried to cover different depths from 300 to 100 feet.

Had 4 blistering big shark runs during the night coming 1 to 2 hours apart.  The first shark was an 8 foot hammerhead caught by Mike Canning.  We brought 2 of the other 3 sharks to the boat with mine breaking off.  Michael Jr., and Matt got their big 8-10 footers to the side of the boat.  We think they were either lemons or dusky sharks but we ain’t shark experts and this crew has not worked together before so without a good ID, we released them all.  You can keep a lemon but not a dusky.  My belief is if you can’t ID the fish, don’t try to keep him.  Got some video of the 2 unknown sharks so perhaps you shark experts can let us know what they are.  We had a great night as the seas laid down flat after midnight.  As some of the crew went down to try to get some sleep, a screaming drag would wake them up.  Finishing the night without our target species, the sword.

For safety during the night I made each crew member wear a lanyard with a glow stick and whistle.  If someone did fall overboard out there in the blackness, I might be hard to find them.  I also flew a radar reflecting flag to try to give a better signal return so other ships might see me better.  I also kept my ships radar on all night and would use the MARPA tracking feature to track each big ship within range so if one came close (which they didn’t) we could move out of their way.  It was also nice having Todd on the Lucky Dog drifting close by us as a buddy boat. 

Glow Sticks/Whistle

Had a visitor tried to hitchhike on our boat during the night.

Ken holding a stormy petrol

As the sun rose we put our 9 line spread back out to flat calm seas.  The calm seas didn’t last long as the winds came up within 30 minutes of trolling to 15-20 knots NE.

Picked up a mako on a red white stretch.  Tried to judge if we would have made the minimum 54 inches but decided it was too close to call so we released him too.  With nothing else on the troll, we decided to go deep drop for blueline tiles.  With our family having plenty from last weekend we said to the remaining crew to catch what they wanted to bring home. So we stopped at 20 tiles of our 42 limit.  With no good tuna reports, we decided to head home around 1030 since we were all getting a bit loopy from staying up most of the night.  Once we cleared the blue water with current, the seas gave a smooth ride all the way home to clean the fish and boat.

Barrel of fish

My thoughts on over-nighting offshore: 

It was very cool.  The life that is attracted to our boat was awesome.  Squid darting around, little tiny baitfish everywhere.  And every hour or so, a screaming drag to get our adrenaline going.  The stars are so bright and vivid.  Once I was comfortable with the safety of the situation, I just relaxed and enjoyed the night air.  The other advantages is your running is during the day and the sun is not right in your eyes each direction.  Although it didn’t prove successful this trip, we were trolling during the right times of day, late afternoon/evening and first thing during daybreak.  We also got the boat and fish cleaned at a reasonable time of day so we could have a little time in the evening to unwind, eat supper and relax some.  I will be looking for opportunities to do this again.  Appreciate Lucky Dog being there.  It’s a comforting feeling to have a buddy nearby.

Mahi supper