joshr
08-18-2002, 12:45 PM
Howie and I ventured off to the Fish Tales on his boat on Saturday and had quite a day.
We left the inlet at about 2:15 am to make the 3.5 hr run 70 miles south to the Tales. Had our lines in by 6:15 am. Within 5 mins or so, we had our first knockdown...nothing impressive...turned out to be a skippy (which the ofshore guys all call "mushies" or "mushmouths" 'cause their lips are soft and so the hooks usually pull out on the troll. Anyway, we dropped a couplel mushies and then a few mins later, another knockdown and this time line is racing off the 30, so we knew it was a decent fish...turned out to be a 45 lb. Longfin (aka Albacore) which pretty much kicked my butt after an hour or so of sleep and 90- deg. heat even though it's not exactly a big tuna.
Then we had a dry spell for a couple hours....there was chatter on the radio about an albie here, an albie there (meaning longfins not false albacore), but nobody had a lot and nobody had any yellows or bigeyes. Most of the action seemed to be to the west of us at The Dip, and Howie turns to me and says, "well, maybe we made a mistake and should have gone to the Dip." Just has he uttered the word "Dip", 3 rods go down simulataneously--2 30s and a 50. Because of his wrist, Howie can crank or gaff, so it was left to me and the one other guy we had aboard to get free lines out of the way and boat 3 fish. We did manage to boat all 3 albacore to 50 or 60 lbs. Well, still no yellows but at least we had a lot of sushi to bring home.
So we get our lines back in the water...all day we had been trolling a couple big marlin plugs--there've ben a lot of marlin around the canyons this year. The big plugs were looking great in the water, chugging and smoking, but hadn;t raised anything. About 10 mins ofter the tripple header, the 80 lb. reel with one of the marlin lures starts singing, and Howie and I look at each other both thinking, "ain't no 50 lb. albie jumping on that thing." We didn't yet know if we had a billfish or a nice bigeye (howie was hoping for the latter; I was hoping for the former, having never landed a billfish before). The line just kept running out, but finally Russ (the 3rd guy) started getting some line back. We each cranked for a while, but he fish never greyhounded, so we still didn;t know what we had. Eventually it surface and we saw we had a white marlin--a big one of about 100 lbs. (whites don't get much bigger than that). With Russ at the reel, I leadereed and billed my first marlin. Got is aboard to look at the beautiful coloring and get the hook out, and then Russ and I lowered her over the side...revived her boatside for a few seconds and she sped off. I was amazed at the pulling strength of that 100 lb. fish...hard to believe a small billfish like that could peel line off 80 lb. gear and could be so tough to crank in.
Well, after high 5s all around, we headed off for what I think of as my part of the day--mahi on fly at the pots. We pulled up the lines, got rods out of the way and pulled up to an offshore pot. Russ tossed a handful of defrosted spearing at the pot, and Howie watched from the tower...in a few seconds, we saw the little chicken dolphin come up and race around after the spearing....dumped the fly into the fray and hooked up almost immediately. These were little 1-3 lb. chicks but fun anyway. A 2 lb mahi was able to get me on the reel on a 9 wt. in a way no 5lb. bluefish ever would. Was hoping to find a nice 20 lb. bull amid allk the little chickens, but didn't see any bigger fish in there. We got a few more small mahi and headed to another pot. Nothing. Then another. Nothing. Another. Nothing. Seems our first pot was the only one with anyone home. So, we stowed the gear and steamed for home. Got back to Montauk by 4 after a great day in the blue water with a total for the day of 4 Longfin Tuna 45-55 lbs, 1 white marlin 100 lbs, and 3 mahi 1-3 lbs. Many thanks to Howie who is a great captain and a pleasure to fish with. Looking forward to Sept. when the BFTs are in thick enough to be flyrodable!
--Josh
We left the inlet at about 2:15 am to make the 3.5 hr run 70 miles south to the Tales. Had our lines in by 6:15 am. Within 5 mins or so, we had our first knockdown...nothing impressive...turned out to be a skippy (which the ofshore guys all call "mushies" or "mushmouths" 'cause their lips are soft and so the hooks usually pull out on the troll. Anyway, we dropped a couplel mushies and then a few mins later, another knockdown and this time line is racing off the 30, so we knew it was a decent fish...turned out to be a 45 lb. Longfin (aka Albacore) which pretty much kicked my butt after an hour or so of sleep and 90- deg. heat even though it's not exactly a big tuna.
Then we had a dry spell for a couple hours....there was chatter on the radio about an albie here, an albie there (meaning longfins not false albacore), but nobody had a lot and nobody had any yellows or bigeyes. Most of the action seemed to be to the west of us at The Dip, and Howie turns to me and says, "well, maybe we made a mistake and should have gone to the Dip." Just has he uttered the word "Dip", 3 rods go down simulataneously--2 30s and a 50. Because of his wrist, Howie can crank or gaff, so it was left to me and the one other guy we had aboard to get free lines out of the way and boat 3 fish. We did manage to boat all 3 albacore to 50 or 60 lbs. Well, still no yellows but at least we had a lot of sushi to bring home.
So we get our lines back in the water...all day we had been trolling a couple big marlin plugs--there've ben a lot of marlin around the canyons this year. The big plugs were looking great in the water, chugging and smoking, but hadn;t raised anything. About 10 mins ofter the tripple header, the 80 lb. reel with one of the marlin lures starts singing, and Howie and I look at each other both thinking, "ain't no 50 lb. albie jumping on that thing." We didn't yet know if we had a billfish or a nice bigeye (howie was hoping for the latter; I was hoping for the former, having never landed a billfish before). The line just kept running out, but finally Russ (the 3rd guy) started getting some line back. We each cranked for a while, but he fish never greyhounded, so we still didn;t know what we had. Eventually it surface and we saw we had a white marlin--a big one of about 100 lbs. (whites don't get much bigger than that). With Russ at the reel, I leadereed and billed my first marlin. Got is aboard to look at the beautiful coloring and get the hook out, and then Russ and I lowered her over the side...revived her boatside for a few seconds and she sped off. I was amazed at the pulling strength of that 100 lb. fish...hard to believe a small billfish like that could peel line off 80 lb. gear and could be so tough to crank in.
Well, after high 5s all around, we headed off for what I think of as my part of the day--mahi on fly at the pots. We pulled up the lines, got rods out of the way and pulled up to an offshore pot. Russ tossed a handful of defrosted spearing at the pot, and Howie watched from the tower...in a few seconds, we saw the little chicken dolphin come up and race around after the spearing....dumped the fly into the fray and hooked up almost immediately. These were little 1-3 lb. chicks but fun anyway. A 2 lb mahi was able to get me on the reel on a 9 wt. in a way no 5lb. bluefish ever would. Was hoping to find a nice 20 lb. bull amid allk the little chickens, but didn't see any bigger fish in there. We got a few more small mahi and headed to another pot. Nothing. Then another. Nothing. Another. Nothing. Seems our first pot was the only one with anyone home. So, we stowed the gear and steamed for home. Got back to Montauk by 4 after a great day in the blue water with a total for the day of 4 Longfin Tuna 45-55 lbs, 1 white marlin 100 lbs, and 3 mahi 1-3 lbs. Many thanks to Howie who is a great captain and a pleasure to fish with. Looking forward to Sept. when the BFTs are in thick enough to be flyrodable!
--Josh