OI June 20th. Fun mixed bag

[HIT N RUN]

Crew: John,Tillford,Joey,Bert Beck & I.

Fished the Point to the 650. Great conditions & lots of choices. Stream change with a perfect weed line holding plenty of Gaffers, Nice blend just inside from the Point north & also a pretty good billfish bite just outside the tip of the Point as well as some south of there. A few Big Eyes were also hooked around the Point & south. The best Yellowfin fishing was for the boats flying kites. A few boats did manage bites on meat but increased their chances by running baits WWB. We started the morning on the tip of the Point & managed a smaller Blue or possibly a really big Hatchet/Log Bill Spear??? (the first of the 09 season & also a first for Tillford) hooked on the rt long first thing in the AM. For It's size it sure put on a great fight. First it was shoulders out of the water & then it was solid deep like a hard Tuna fight, even after Tillford got it up it went back for more. Just a tough fish for it's size.

Then it was on to the weed line which held all the gaffers you wanted. We cut it off pretty early cause of the radio talk of Tuna being caught back at the Point on the kites & we didn't want to get any further NE offshore along that change. It sounded like things down there were getting pretty crazy with all the kites fishing in such a small area so we opted to stay up above them & searched for a bite between the 600-650 with a combination of close in meat & stick baits further back. We marked a ton of fish mostly between the 615-630 but couldn't get them to bite. We also tried to drop jigs down on them & again no luck. Later the fleet started filtering in with the kites & started getting them in that same area. It surprised me that our stick was not getting them but I noticed that it seemed like none of the other stick boats were stopping much during that time of the day either from what I saw. I'm guessing it's the calm SW winds & Sat boat traffic that was making it tougher than it had been earlier in the week. We did however manage a few for the box & a few good misses where the Tuna would air out but miss. They seemed to need glasses. All & all another great day on the water out of OI. Wish we could of had more Tuna bites but although we were in some fantastic marks, we just couldn't get them to commit to our danglers as well as the kites. Funny thing is I have a nice kite set up & had spent a good deal of time last season learning how to use it but had taken it off the boat thinking the stick would take it's place but interestingly enough, even some of the fleet boats with sticks were using their kites instead yesterday.

Hope I won't have to use it but I will keep it on the boat just in-case for now on.

Oh I almost forgot, Late in the day I went back down to the Point & made some passes where the fleet had managed an early morning flurry but were now all up on the 615-630. Only Point Runner, Skiligal & us were in the area. We had just crossed the tip just about where we had set lines in the am & stumbled across a huge mark only about 12 fathoms down. I made a few passes & again no love. To me it looked like a Big Eye mark but after an entire day of not getting whammed it was getting tough to remain confident so we once again pulled it out of gear & dropped 2 jigs down hoping to change our luck. Notta. so we moved on. Well no sooner than we left to start heading back north I hear Point Runner & Skilagal talking about what sounded like the same marks in that same area then I hear Dave Peck (Skilagal) say a monster Eye hit his WWWB rigger & the fight was on. He later reported catching it & estimated it to be around 170Lbs. Big congrats!!!

Wow now thats what I'm talking about but I still can't help but wonder if the mark we saw was also an Eye & if so, how cool would it have been to of hooked one that way. The jigging rods were set up with heavy leaders & everything just right. That sure would of been a day capper right there! The chance for an Eye & these nicer class Tuna was the main reason we didn't steam up to the southern end of the VB bite. Actually the building SW wind also would of sucked to run home from that far up the line.

Anyways as many times as we definitely were over the nicer class Yellowfin marks between the 615-630 yesterday & tried an occasional jig drop right on their heads, I can say without a doubt that like everything else with fishing, you gotta match what the fish want & yesterday the jigs didn't seem to be getting them as well as I would of expected. Go figure.


Beck was with us so some fun pics & a dock shot were taken. See you next week & it was great fishing with our buddy boat Poor Boys Toy as usual. Hope your knee sugery goes well Leon & you are back soon.


Rat Blue or on snd thought maybe a big Hatchet/Spear fish ??? right out of the gate. Congrats Tillford on your first!




Gaffers




Vistor


Super cool Sail/stick boat that Iv'e seen out there these past 2 weekends. Notice all the LL floats & other gear, He also has a big tall green rigger looking thing I would guess he uses to drag meat baits from.


Sea's building by days end.


The other red meat


Dock

[Persistence2]

Nice Bill...sounds like a lot of action. Peck sure seems to sniff em' out

Keep after em'.

Glenn

[Sea-Ya]

Thanks for the report.Sounded like a nice day for the water with some meat in the box.Great pics.
Hope to be headed that way next weekend.

"Sea-Ya" ,Jeff

[Bill Fisher]

Sounds like a cool day all in all.....lots of turbo pups to the north

[smithbros]

nice job Bill.
I would like to hear the story on that sailboat. That thing looked bad ass, Talk about bang for you buck!

It killed me to sit this week out, but I will be back in it this week.

Taylor

[Peddler]

Bill, good job on your day. That is IMO not a Blue Marlin in the pic. Some call them long bill spearfish, some call them hatchets. I've caught several of them over the last few years up to about 125lbs. Note the long pointed lower jaw and the short (not broken) bill. The pec fins are too long for a small Blue as well. There has been alot of debate about what they really are with some insisting they are a hybrid of a blue and white marlin. They do have pointed anal fins and pec fins but the dorsal, lower jaw and bill length are the dead giveaways. Wish you had a pic with the dorsal shown so i could be 100% sure but i'm 99% sure its not a blue. I've had two big ones like that where we were sure they were small blues until i pulled them aboard for a pic and realized they werent. If you have a pic of the dorsal, post it up, i'd like to see it.

[FINS]

Bill,
I love your reports. They are so detailed like I was there. I just need to live vicarously through you!! That looked like a bigger Rat!!

David

[TAT-TUNA]

Good Job Bill, Scott! Look forward to fishing with you sooon......

[Fishboy OV8]

Sounds like ya'll had a good day and toughed it out for a couple tuna bites. Rich went on Friday and says the sticks did well that day but the tuna weren't responding too well on the meat either. Congrats to Tillford on your first Blue. Guess it's like you say, need that East flow and a Wednesday bite. I'd bet the jigs will work another day. Tourney is next weekend up here, hope to see ya'll soon afterwards.

[HIT N RUN]

[QUOTE=Peddler;1392110]Bill, good job on your day. That is IMO not a Blue Marlin in the pic. Some call them long bill spearfish, some call them hatchets. I've caught several of them over the last few years up to about 125lbs. Note the long pointed lower jaw and the short (not broken) bill. The pec fins are too long for a small Blue as well. There has been alot of debate about what they really are with some insisting they are a hybrid of a blue and white marlin. They do have pointed anal fins and pec fins but the dorsal, lower jaw and bill length are the dead giveaways. Wish you had a pic with the dorsal shown so i could be 100% sure but i'm 99% sure its not a blue. I've had two big ones like that where we were sure they were small blues until i pulled them aboard for a pic and realized they werent. If you have a pic of the dorsal, post it up, i'd like to see it.[/QUOT

Pete, I questioned the same thing cause of it's unusual look but thought that both a long bill spear & a Hatchet were supposed to be small. The 1st link claims the the world record is only 127lbs. I have a bunch of pics but all were taken when it was still below the surface & none show it's dorsal. The problem was it had fought straight down for a good while. The first time it came close to the surface it was lit up with vertical strips & looked good but then went back down for more on only 90lb floro leader so we didn't push it. Then on the last time it had less color so we wanted to release it as fast as possible & I guess we should of pulled up it's dorsal for a pic as it would of been easy enough to do. I know it is hard to tell from the pics & I'm not very skilled at estimating weights but it had to of been closer to 150lbs based on how both long & thick it's body was which is the main reason the thing looked so weird to me. Like a retarded White on steroids. Who knows now but cool either way.
Here are a few links I found. Just more to confuse me. The last link claims the Hatchet can get bigger but in the pic shows a more rounded anal fin. They suggest you should keep them for science. I was glad to see it swim away. Maybe some lucky person will hook it at this years WMO. Now that would be intresting for sure.

All About Saltwater Longbilled Spearfish
Untitled Document
Bill Fish, Fish Species - Your Fish Identification and Fishing Field Guide