2-3 Aug Overnight on the Matador

[sfcallen]

Had a great time with Capt Jake, 1st Mate Bill, my wife Dana, Tom Kidwell, Robin and Julie. Put the lines in inside the tip of the canyon on the evening of the 2nd to pick up some tuna before setting out the sword gear. Not much life at first, started getting some good marks in 72-85 fathoms on the south wall. A couple of large whales were working bait. Drilled the marks hard but could not get them to rise.

Just before dark we deployed the sword baits and lights. A lot of squid and bait fish all around the lights. Got the last bait out and one of the far baits starts to run, but no hook up. Made several drifts over ledge during the night without a bite. Tons of squids, flying fish, and other bait all around the boat the whole night. Before light we get the spread back out and start working the the area we left the night before. Right away the Squidnation chain is screaming. Tom puts the hurt on the the fat 68lb yellow and brings him in for a quick finish. Worked backed in to the 30 fathom lumps and we get a dirty white window shopping the short rigger. Short time later I was watching the dredge and a very small sail dog comes darting in lite up, but quickly vanishes.

With little to show for effort, and few signs of life, we pull the spread in and point the bow down south to the weather buoy. Pull up to the buoy, we spent a few minutes messing with some horse eye jacks and small mahi off it. Run a little south east and find a 1.5 degree break with some weed mats and broken weeds. Start seeing some small fliers and a few marks down. Put the spread out and start dragging. Quickly get a gaffer. While the gaffer is coming in the shotgun with a spread bar starts screaming. Get the rod down and my wife is in the chair with a hot fish pulling some good drag on the Tiagra 80W. A few minutes into the battle and the fish comes up jumping for 50 yards across the surface. Jake and I were in shock at the size of this sail that was on. But, jumping all around with the big spreader bar the huge sail was soon free.

The water was quickly moving off to the southeast and the weeds broke up and made it tough to fish. Trolled back to the west to get out of the mess of weeds and had 3 wahoo bite offs and saw a blue one free jump once and never saw him again.


Tom having some fun in the chair


Tom putting the heat to a yeller



Squidnation chain hooked up



Bill on the leader



Nice hand over hand



Bill taking the wrap and getting the warstick for the shot


Long day, long night, early morning = gaffed in the middle J/K the only bad shot is the one were the fish does not get in the boat



Smile for pictures next time Tom


Had a great time Jake and Bill, can't wait to do it again.

[Mike Avery]

Thanks for the report guys. Great pics. Looks like perfect weather, flat seas, sunny skies. Nice night for overnighting. Get some sleep and head back out to try again.

[juggernaut]

Nice Report. When Your Raising Em, Your Doing Something Right. You'll Get Em Next Time.

[tolmaz]

Great shots!!

[David]

You had variety.Nice pics thanks.

[alby man]

nice report Jake . we released a saildog on thursday . fish was caught at the 30 fa lumps inshore of the washington . bit the wwwb blue /white bait pics to follow I hope .

[gordy]

Good fun as always with this bunch. The gaff shot was the second as the first ripped out of his head. Please note the accuracy of the hit just above the loin, not ruining the meat.lol

Damn, sure wish Dana had gotten that sail in.

That picture of Tom is awesome and the smile says it all. Would love some pics for my album Greg.... email em to me when you get the chance. bknapp124@yahoo.com

Can't wait for the next one guys, maybe we will find that swordie and get Julie her bill.

[capt. jakeg]

Yeh I was kind of depressed about the fishing at night. We definitely gave it a good shot. I thought it was gonna be ON when we started setting baits and got a pull. But then nodda. We had the whole water column covered. Four squids at staggered depths. Live bait on the surface. Even later in the night, I put a chum block out and a whole bonita just to get some shark action.... nope. That canyon area was dead water. I think the squid were the only thing there. I'm not going swording again until the first solid cold front of the fall comes through. I will go shark fishing at night, but thats gonna be somewhere way closer than the canyon.
As far as the billfish go, you win some, you lose some. I thought we did ok with the amount we saw. Saw three... two window shoppers that quickly dissappeared and the one we were lucky enough to hookup comes on the bar. An 80 with a spreader bar on it probably isn't the first rod I would have chosen to hookup a sail that wants to be airborne, but the fish is the one who picked it. At least we got to see them.
On a side note, there were a million chicken dolphin there and every piece of structure out there is now holding them. We just didn't have the interest to bail. Looks like we are set in the normal summer pattern now with very few tunas. Billfish mixed. Plenty of bailers.
On the way in saw boats stopped and bailing on very large weedmats around the hotdog area. Nice to know there are fish in closer. 35 miles is a whole lot nicer than 60. It looked very good in there and I wouldn't be suprised at all to hear of dolphins, wahoos, kings, even YFT's and sails coming from that area. There were also large schools of cigar minnows on the surface in this area too. The water was clear, blue and 80 degrees almost all the way to the beach. There was nice rips with sargasso scattered everywhere out there. I'm sure there are scattered dolphin all inshore and on monday I will be putting in lines appx 25 miles out, with several planer baits.
We saw a pair of large cobia cruising top three miles from the beach on the way home, but by the time I could turn the boat back around from cruise, they had pushed down. On thursday, before the overnighter I had a half day and we saw 11 cobes cruising the surface off the oceanfront in less than an hour, so there are plenty out there.
Had a good time guys.

[Tom Kidwell]

Always a pleasure to go fishing with you and Gordy Jake! I would have liked to have seen Julie and Robin tackle some larger fish, but they understand what fishing's all about! Glad to hear Dana has made a full recovery. Over a beer sometimes, I'll fill you in on what really happened in the cockpit when that sail was on..... he wasn't the only pointy-nosed critter in our spread! Till next time bro!

[cereid]

Great Job,

I spoke with you briefly on the radio. It's Angler Management here - Claude Reid. We had a slow day with one white that never got tight, one gaffer and some small mahi. I tried to call you as my partner boat, Hailey Grace, had two whites, a dozen mahi and a short visit with somebody in a Blue Suit. I seem to be close to the bite but not on it - lately. The temp break that was between us was never found.

Anyway, thanks and great report.