Wow, what a weekend.
Friday I went out at dawn. The Gulf was flat and tuna were skying every where. I made bait quickly as I could and head out.
Surprisingly enough with all the tuna at dawn, it took me a couple hours to hook up into my first ever tuna and wow what a battle. It weighed twenty pounds bled out. It didnt fit in my cooler so I hit the beach to get it on ice.
Saturday, I had to do it again so, again, Im at the beach at dawn. This time Im ready to go with a big cooler, too big for my yak actually.
Anyhow the big cooler paid off.
After making bait I head out and suddenly tuna start busting about ten yards in front of me. I throw a jig at them and burn it across the water. They fight over it, one eats and I jack him up. Fifty minutes later I get about a twenty five pound tuna. It was noticeably bigger then Fridays but I didnt weigh it.
About thirty minutes later my slow trolled live cigar minnow gets ate. Forty four minutes later I land a NICE black fin tuna, estimated at thirty plus pounds. So, in a little over two hours I catch two tuna and most of that time was spent fighting fish. Both fish were caught on seventeen pound test. They are strong fish but the fight is rather boring. They turn sideways and just stay down and thump. Id get em twenty feet from the surface and theyd go down forty five feet to the bottom. This happened over and over again during the fight.
The bite died down giving me a much needed rest then the king bite picked up. I snagged a few including a new personal best smoker in the upper twenty pound range.
Fresh tuna sashimi and rare grilled tuna is FANTASTIC. It just melted in your mouth like butter. YUM.
The sailfish are still here with a couple being caught this weekend and October is usually prime time for tuna and sails. I cant wait, all I need is my sail and I will have the pelagics covered.
Some pics to enjoy.
Reply With Quote