30-31 Aug 07/Sloppy Overnighter

Saw what I thought was a good weather window for Thursday evening so headed out with a crew of Greg (sfcallen), Kevin (alby man), Ken, and son Michael Jr. Had a bumpy quartering head sea from the NE wind still blowing 10-15.

Put lines in the little 10 fathom lump just north of the cigar and picked up a fat albert quickly. The guy thought he was somebody peeling off drag making us think we had a quality fish. Picked up another fat albert near the weather buoy. We continue to head SE into the briny abyss trying to find a good place to set up for the night. Never really found any good place so with the sun going down stop trolling and put out the drift spread. Seas never laid down, in fact stayed NE to N 15 most of the night making things bumpy all night. I think it laid down between 2 am and 3:30 am but picked back after that.

Plan was to do a combination of sword fishing and chunk with butters but we all got a big case of the lazies with the rolly seas, no marks, no baitfish around the swordlight so we just let the big squid drift the night. Had one squid down very deep around 500-600 feet and 3 others at depths above that. Not a pull all night and we covered about 8 miles with a 1 knot S to SW drift. At around 4 am, we saw some big tuna in our swordlight so started to chunk the butters and put some butters down on circle hooks. Tuna disappeared but did manage a bailer mahi on the butters.

At sunrise, we put the trolling spread out but due to the NW winds picking up and now very rolling seas, we put out a minimal spread of only 7 rods. Tough to see the spread and any fish checking things out with the steep waves with no backs and white caps. At around the 100 line at 40 fathoms, we saw some birds picking and went 0 for 3 on the white marlins despite some great dropbacks. Worked the area for a while and decide to start trolling inshore to hopefully get us out of the slop and put us closer to home. Talked with Conner on C-Note who was braving the seas too…I hope he found some billfish somewhere.

Troll, troll, troll, and finally way inshore of the cigar at 14 fathoms, Kevin picks up a nice wahoo on his planer rod with a red/black island with medium ballyhoo on wire.

Kevin's Wahoo
Kevin’s Wahoo

Troll more until about 2:30 and we have all had enough so put the spread away and make our way home to a quartering head sea into NW winds. Did I mention a quartering head on the way out…how did I manage a freaking head sea in both directions.

Had a great crew just not much fish and crappy unpredicted seas. Good fishing with a new crew member, Kevin (alby man). Great to have him in the cockpit.

Final tally:

2 for 2 fat alberts (kept for bait)
1 for 1 mahi
0 for 3 dirty white boys
1 for 1 wahoo