SBFT sightings-8/3/05

[sandy]

The weather was perfect for an offshore trip so we headed SE out of Boston Harbor this morning in search of footballs. Visibility was great and it was dead calm so our hopes were high of at least seeing some. Soon we started seeing tuna finning on the surface and swimming lazily around but they weren't feeding and wouldn't take anything we threw at them. So we continued on and saw lots of whales (we were out near Stellwagen). We were cruising along and all of a sudden there was a big boil right in front of the boat. We slowed down and looked around and ten seconds later the water all around the front of the boat exploded with tuna. I won't repeat the words coming out of our mouths when that happened, we were pretty pumped. We got a few casts off and the school disappeared only to surface again 5 minutes later and a half mile away. They did this about five more times and each time we got a couple casts off but no takes. I blame this on two things, the first being that we had no idea what we were doing out there and then second being that we never could get a sense of what the bait looked like they were chasing and therefore had a hard time matching the hatch. Eventually we lost the school and continued on. Despite not hooking up, it was still amazing to be that close to those fish. I can't wait to get out there again.

[sandy]

I've got a video of the school splashing around but it is too big (11mb) to post. Is there any way to get it up in the video forum? It is from a digital camera.

[Mark Cahill]

mncahill@gmail.com and I'll get you squared away. Try to send it as an attachment. If that doesn't work, I'll figure something else out for you.

[sage fly guy]

Next your out and want to catch one of the SOB's, think Tsunami's. ;)

chris

[sandy]

I had some small ones but the hooks never would have held up. I'll get some bigger ones for next time. I keep thinking that we could have gotten them on fly gear since i had some mushies, but my orvis DXR would have gotten spooled and trashed. I'm shooting for tuna fly gear next season when I hopefully have more money.

[Mark Cahill]

http://www.reel-time.com/video/tuna8-3-05.wmv


Couldn't get it embedded...

Enjoy!

[sandy]

Thanks Mark!

[wasabi]

Is it just poor resolution or were there no birds on top of that pod? Could it be just a big school of tuna on the surface without actively feeding on bait?

It's just that everytime I've seen busting tuna, I saw a ton of birds + a ton of baitfish . . .

[sandy]

There were a handful of shearwaters and maybe three gulls on the school so there really wasn't a lot of bird action. We first found the school by luck, not by birds, since they just happened to come up by the boat as we were cruising. I guess because they weren't staying up that long it didn't give the birds a good chance to congregate. We did notice that when they went down the shearwaters started leapfrogging off, meaning one would take off and land 30 yards away and then the others would follow and then they would do it again. We realized they were somehow following the school and tried to keep up with them. We also realized that the tuna were moving in a straight line towards Provincetown once we looked at our run and gun path on the gps after chasing them for a while.

[Soundking]

What an insane feed...just EPIC. You musta been sooo pumped! Did ya try the popper? Huge feeds like that, a popper slowly worked across the top is the death.

[JohnBerger]

Well they were not there today if 150miles and 12 hours counts as a good look.

[sage fly guy]

Is it just poor resolution or were there no birds on top of that pod? Could it be just a big school of tuna on the surface without actively feeding on bait?

It's just that everytime I've seen busting tuna, I saw a ton of birds + a ton of baitfish . . .


Sometime's you have monster amounts of tuna feeding the water to a froth and not a single bird for miles.

Yeah, a lot of times there are birds when the tuna are up, but many, many times you have to hunt for them without the visual of the birds. Often it will appear the birds are the only available clue, so you get a fleet of 1/2 dozen boats chasing.

That's when it's time to slow down, move away from the fleet of runner gunner's and look for less obvious clues as to their location and possbile feeding pattern for the day.

Remember they don't give a shiite about the birds, just BAIT.

chris

[sandy]

What an insane feed...just EPIC. You musta been sooo pumped! Did ya try the popper? Huge feeds like that, a popper slowly worked across the top is the death.

I had several chug bugs in a couple sizes but of course we didn't toss them out. my brain wasn't working too well with the massive amounts of adrenaline blasting through my body. next time.