18/19 Overnight on the Muff Diver

[Reel Draggin Tackle]

This trip was scheduled to depart Friday and return late Sunday afternoon, another 40 hour trip on the Muff Diver. However, due to the weather we delayed departure from the White Marlin until early Saturday morning. We headed to the area short of the Wilmington, a little before most of the fleet.

Capt Joe Riley put us on the fish within 30 min of getting the spread out. We had non-stop action, releasing a lot of skippies (keeping some for bait), quite a few 20 to 24" Yellows as we picked our way through 8 keeper yellow fin; most were just over 20 pounds but three were pushing 45#. The early bite was in 70 fathoms and the fish moved to 100 as the day went on. We also had Blue and two whites in the spread.

Around three pm we dropped some lead and skippy bait to the bottom and found six 5 to 8 pound blue line tiles. At 6:30 Wayne setup the BBQ grill as we all enjoyed fresh tuna cooked..or not. The six charters sit back cracked a few cold ones and enjoyed a great dinner on the Muff Diver,reflecting the days kill and anticipating the evening events. You have to twist Ryans arm to get him to post the marinade for the tuna, it was GREAT!

Around 8:30pm we started getting the shark rigs set, chum in the water. It didn't take long, and the action was non-stop. Between 9pm and aabout 2:30 three of the awake anglers brought 12 sharks to the boat, the biggest being a bad a$$ 10 foot hammerhead that wanted nothing to do with the boat.

After 2:30am, the crew setteled in for a few hours of sleep. We would be making a heading back to the tuna grounds at 4am so we could be trolling by 5am. What a difference a day makes. Early we found skippies and a few small yellows, none for the kill box. We did get a nice 25# bull Mahi around 7am. Then we found the White Marlin. We had 9 whites attack our spreader bars, skip the float back hoo and bat our long line outa the clip upon departure.

Lots of action on these long trips! Good times on the Muff Diver. I'll post a few pictures later.

[Bend-Lure]

Sounds like a great trip! Post some pics.

[David]

Ken sweet trip Joe sure knows how to get the job done.