Just got back from one of the most spectacular trips to the North East Canyons that I can remember in recent history. Fished with all star crew in: Derek Oneppo, Capt Lou Defusco, Matt Smalley From Gibbs and myself. Battling over 15 Monster Yellowfin, some of the biggest Longfin Albacore I've ever encountered and a short treat from a Giant Wahoo that put on a quick show for us before chewing us off, it would have been a great trip by any measure.
But what made this trip even better is that more than 3/4 of the fish taken where the result of jigging and popping with artificial lures.
Hearing reports of storms in the future we moved the trip up a little leaving Tuesday night around 6pm. By 940pm we were into the clear warm water and jockeying around for the evening assault. After deciding on a place to set up the crew was quick to work. Setting up a slick of cut bait rigging a few baits for swords and tuna and setting up the Jig and Pop gear. About and hour or so into the effort one of the Local Hooker rods baited with a cut bait doubled over and Smalley soon found him self tight on a complete pig of a nice Yellowfin. After a nice little battle on a 50 and boating the fish, We snapped a couple pics and got hard to work on the slick and began to Jig our asses off. Almost instantly Derek got smashed on a Ronz Lure and was getting dumped on a VS275 on a Local Hooker Leviathan. Standing right next to him and fishing a Stingo G-ROD Series 5'6" 2pc 350 gram with a Shimano Torsa 16N with a 5oz Silver and Blue Stingo PBJ, I hooked up and we began to tuna tango while trying to keep from tangling in each others aggressive fish. 10 Minutes later two more fish on deck and so began the carnage. The entire night was spent fighting fish, re-rigging, processing and packing tuna on Ice.
By the time we got a chance to look at a watch, it was 6am and fish had began to break the surface all around the boat. We changed tactics to Topwater fishing and again we treated to a flurry of action including a great surprise from one of the largest Albacore I have ever landed ( It struck a Green 4x Ronz being ripped across the surface on spinning gear. What a great fight!)
Once the sun came up the bite, slowed down and many of the fish moved deeper into the water column. We set up a quick spread and began to troll our way north before steaming home. Only moments into the troll we had a massive wahoo annihilate the spread and absolutely dump one of the 50's before chewing through our fluoro.At the same time our friend Wade trolling in anothe boat hooked up with and landed a Monster Wahoo over 6 feet long! We reset the spread and trolled for another 20mins before we had a nice 90lb Yellow come rocketing up and smash a Carlson Green Machine bar. Lou hopped on the rod and landed the fish after a nice little battle. After boating and packing that fish we literally had no more room to hold anymore with out having to do some creative shifting. So we pointed the boat north and steamed home.
A fantastic way to begin "a wrap up" of the 2012 offshore season, and a great time on the water with some great dudes.
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