Fished with Ned Washburn and Pete Dirado hoping to get a fish for this weekends Dick Tonks Tournament... Ned seems to think he can catch a fish on my boat every year and for the last few years it's been true!... Pete is still looking for his first fish on his "New" marlin caster he bought years ago...
Started out Saturday and made bait at izors and was fortunate enough to make enough for us and for Chris who normally is loaded up down in Dana, but it didn't happen and so we offered up a few fresh baits for the day. We had hoped he and Geoff could parlay them into some fish for their Tournament....Always feels good to pass bait, if anyone ever needs it and we can spare it, we look forward to do so...
Headed back in and fixed the Autopilot so it would be ready for Sunday.
Sunday came and we were able to head out and start just below the Rigs at an area that in days prior had some early bites (Pesky Tx). Sure enough, Pete finds a tailer and we make our way towards it, but it sunk out after it popped twice. Guys were saying they weren't staying up good so easy to be out of position. No cast. We donut that area and find bait and a couple of jumpers around the bait ball so we are thinking that at least today, the fish seem to be around the bait balls...not always the case but maybe because they've been here so long, they've settle in... especially since the bait hasn't left the area it's easy for them to find. No cast, no bites....
Hear of some fish in another area and so we start that way... upon arrival, we meter another bait ball and sauries gray hounding... we decide to change to taking off the squid chains on the riggers and stingers as we haven't got a sniff all morning and Royal Slam has already had 3 bites that haven't stuck, all on "naked" jigs...
seems like that paid off as the left rigger with the Ice blue and Pink Polukai lure gets bit and we are on. Ned gets the rod and Pete and I clear and we settle into a fight with a bigger fish... with each jump you could see the fish was thick... it hardly jumped but acted more like a tuna. Luckily Ned did a great job with the fish and we didn't mess up in the end game and we were rewarded with a clean release on 30 lb... High fives around and we tried for more....Ned was tired...jelly arms he said.
Later, in that same area at the bottom of the shipping lanes we found feeders and jumpers but couldn't get Pete his fish... We pulled the rods at 5 pm and headed in. Of course we found a big jumper at 5:10 and were able to get a bait on it but it didn't bite. Another fish feeding 2 miles above at 5:30pm for not bites... By then, we were just below the bottom Rig and we boogied home with a few flags to fly...
Thanks Ned and Pete for a great day...
jeff
Dana Angling Club