Some Yellowfin in the Washington Yesterday

[Healthy Grin]

Normal people get excited about reports of big fish. The reports of sub-legal size tuna in the Washington Canyon last week got us going. Particularly the bluefin tuna though there is some interest in obtaining DNA from the smallest yellowfin possible from different regions of the world.

We caught the young-of-the-year bluefin tuna last September. These one-year-olds will be 20 something inches now. There are some scientific reasons for wanting to obtain samples of different size fish (when they start crossing the Atlantic and so on). 2 and 3 year olds (30 something and 40 something inch fish right now) are pretty easy to get samples from (they are legal to keep and people fish for them). Anyway, Dr. John Graves asked if I would go after the little ones. I said that I would give it a try but that there were no reports of the babies in the past couple of days and I came in on one engine last weekend.

That last part was taken care of by Carter Machinery. They have always been very good at getting the Healthy Grin back out on the water in the shortest possible time. The boat ran great. We did not do so well with the little bluefin.

We ran up to the Washington yesterday and fished the area with spreader bars and daisy chains of mini-cedar plugs that Bob Manus had made. The skipjack loved those things and we caught a bunch of them. We had 9 or 10 tuna bites. Due to various factors, we only boated 3 of those. They were all yellowfin tuna in the 31-35 inch fork-length range: wrong color and too big. They went in the box. One of our little mishaps cost us our one mini natural cedar plug chain (and the tuna hooked to it). Replaced it with a full-size chain and got a lot fewer bites. There were some dolphin around. We jumped off a couple and caught a couple of gaffers. We actually had a fair amount of action, just not by what we were after. If anyone gets into the little bluefin again, please let me know.

[TommyTuna]

cool report - have gotten away from trying small baits when the action slows - not now ;)

[johnnylaw]

Thnx for the report

[TerpHeels]

Apprec the rpt...seems them yft are covering all the bases right about now.

[coomes]

There were plenty of 24-26 inch bluefin on the Hotdog out of OC today. Had to weed through the biggest Alberts you have ever seen to get the tuna bites though. I don't know if this is out of range for you but we caught 10 or so in a couple of hours trolling bars and cedar plugs.

Pat

[Aquatrax]

Gotta hand it to you Ken- U can find a fish- 2 wks ago the Washinton was loaded w/ tunas but no way I'd be up there w/ yesterdays' Sat shot; nice going. We had the pleasure of a one engine 83 mile ride last Saturday. dave

[Healthy Grin]

Ouch, I hate those one engine ride ins. I guess it is better than no engine. Hope it is an easy fix. If I had just been fishing, I would have headed south.

I don't know exactly where the Hot Dog is up there but I think it is farther than I would want to run from Rudee. John (or Molly) may need to beg ride-alongs for some of their grad students out of Ocean City or Cape May.

[lmontagnaj]

Gotta hand it to you Ken- U can find a fish- 2 wks ago the Washinton was loaded w/ tunas but no way I'd be up there w/ yesterdays' Sat shot; nice going. We had the pleasure of a one engine 83 mile ride last Saturday. dave

Dave:
Hope you got her fixed for the return trip... I was right on your tails heading that way when you lost that motor... Decided to not make the run alone... I stayed a little later than usual making sure you were still on track... See you in the Blue!!!

Ken:
Glad you found some Sushi... I've been watching the breaks and plan on a return trip hopefully next week.. I could use some Tuna and hopefully a pointed one... Pretty Work..

[Aquatrax]

Lucian- We were 2 miles from that water when we shut down. I wish you would have kept coming to tell me what we missed. Boat should be back together tomorrow. dave

[lmontagnaj]

Lucian- We were 2 miles from that water when we shut down. I wish you would have kept coming to tell me what we missed. Boat should be back together tomorrow. dave

Dave:
I know I should have... It's Killing me... Have the Harborfest thing this weekend, but next I'll be there looking for some fresh blood... I am STOKED to get back out... Going to leave all the deep drop gear on the dock so there is no other choice but to keep running till we find the meat...

Glad the boat will be back in commission tomorrow, hope it wasn't too painful.. looking forward to seeing you again soon...