OC to the Forty Fathoms Line on 8 Sep

[VanN]

Left OC at 0600 hrs and lines were in at 0815 at the same spot where we had left the tuna biting the day before. We went over the Hambone straight on out to the 40 fa line, running thru water 68.5F to water 75F at the 40 line. We trolled the same Blu/Wh and Pink islanders with hoo as day before, and changed two more lines off the short riggers to meat (one black/red and one green seawitches), and pulled same bird/gm that had picked up three tuna day before. The weeds were much worse, and the lines had to be cleared constantly. Despite seeing boats hooking up all around us, incredibly, we didn't get a single tuna bite. On one occasion, a school of small mahi tried to commit suicide, but were apparently too small to do more than mangle the bait. We gave up in disgust and headed to the barn at 1400 hrs, stopping to bail a few small mahis at a bass pot on the way in. Oh well, didn't have room for much more tuna in the freezer after the successful day yesterday.

[FrankyPettolina]

Any success on the mahis at the pots? I saw you guys there when we were running home.

[VanN]

Franky - 2 of the 3 pots that we tried had mahis - 4-5 at each, but they were small. Lots of fun to catch but we released all of them.

[David]

I was as disappointed as you guys.Sorry that they weren't snappin for you.

[WildeOne]

There's always next time!

Jim

[Capt. George]

Van You can't get em every time. Did you check below for banana's? You'll get em next trip. G

[Capt. Yakes]

Clear skies, full moon...they are eating all night.

[VanN]

Geo. - I failed to check Ray & Jim for bananas, and I'll bet that one of them had some on board.

I talked to a couple of charter capts. who were very successful that day. They were using the same lures that we were (blu/wh islanders w/hoo). They claimed their secret was trying to stay in the weeds because that's where they were hooking up - we were trying to avoid the weeds because it was so much trouble to constantly clear them off the lures. Moral: The easy way isn't always the most productive way.

[WildeOne]

Due to Van's expert helmsmanship, Ray and I caught more than our quota of weeds and we didn't even have any bananas! It was really easy, just put everything up every 5 minutes and we had weeeds.

Jim