Went offshore on the Relentless with Marco and Larry Backman yesterday. We left the Falmouth dock at 400 and had a great view of the northern lights from the sound. The display lasted almost until dawn and was one of the most spectacular ones I'd ever seen.
After a three hour run, Dan Junker (our captain) and Kevin (our mate) set out 4 squid big-rigs on bent-rods with 130 lb reels. We were after bluefin. As someone who considers Penn 50's an overkill for anything except macho, 900+ yds of 300 lb line seemed, well, heavy, to put it politely. The drags were set at 80 lbs, which means you can't pull off line even with gloved hands. The rid tips are slightly larger than broomsticks, and much stiffer. Anyway, it took Dan some time to get the rigs flying right. (For the uninitiated, a 'big squid rig' has a spreader bar pulling 4-5 streamers of 12" plastic squid. The thing is about 7' long by 3' wide.) The last squid in the line has a hook whose size fit my views of Penn 130 reels. The rigs are trolled on the surface at 3-4 knots in a V-pattern.
Lots of marine life in the area. We saw humpbacks, pilot whales, bottlenose dolphins, sharks, ocean sunfish, and lots and lots of bait marking at 50' to 80'. Also tuna on the surface but there weren't interested in eating. Not yet. Temperature 55-56 deg consistently. There were about 5-6 boats in sight, trolling or chunking.
Between 7 and 11, we explored the area, looking for temperature gradients and trying to map out the baitfish locations. Things were getting a little slow.
Around 11, we started seeing tuna on the surface again. Larry climbed up to the flybridge with Dan and Marco. Kevin and I stayed down to watch the rigs.
There's nothing that prepares you for the sight of a bluefin crashing a big rig. The water bulges underneath like a depth charge went off, and moments later you see this head, bigger than you can possibly imagine, precede the rest of the animal coming out of the water. The fish crashes sideways into the water, and then there's a huge patch of white and green foam as the reel goes off.
Dan came off the flybridge (I swear) head-first, as the mate and I cleared the other lines as we'd been coached. All this time the reel's going unstoppably, and the broomstick rod is actually bent over!??! (This after I had firmly convinced myself that these rods couldn't possibly be bent.) Then, in a minute, everything goes slack and Dan reminds me of my dad when he found me making mud pies in the living room.
Larry is still spotting fish from the tower and we start to put out the two recovered rigs. Dan is halfway back up the tower when another reel goes off; he's already practiced up Quint impersonations, and pretty much lands right on the reel. My rig's only halfway out, and we clear the rest of the cockpit. Looks like we got this guy hooked!
After the big strike, things settle down a bit. Line's going off with no signs of slowing down, the broomstick's bent over double, and Dan wants me to take the reel. The giant reel is warming up as the spool diameter shrinks. Dan's setting up the boat with the fish on the quarter, and I keep yelling 'We gotta chase!'. The spool's getting thin, and I wonder just how thick the axle is on a 130. This gives the words 'reel-cleaning run' a whole new meaning! We finally move the drag to full and turn the boat to chase. I gain line a quarter crank at a time. The right side of the spool is hot. Things settle down a bit and I'm starting to hurt.
Marco's still up on the tower and needs me to get him down, so Kevin takes over while Larry and I get the kid down. Then it's Larry's turn, and he lasts a good 20 minutes. He's gaining line, painfully, 1/4 crank at the time, with 700+ yds out. For a while it's more or less even, and then he starts gaining on the fish. We change out again after 20 mins. He's sweating and sore. Dan asks for what we'd like to do with the fish, and we all vote to release.
After about 45 mins, the fish is no longer making long runs, and is starting to thrash on the surface. According to Dan, he's not behaving like a tuna. Could we have a large mako? On a squid rig? As we get it closer, it appears tail-wrapped and strangely quiet. After 1 hr 15 mins, it's within 100 yds of the boat, making only feeble runs, and it's clear the line is coming off the aft end. As he comes in closer, we watch him die. There is only short flurries of the tail, and the gills are not moving.
Finally, after 1 hr 25 mins, the fish is boatside, quite dead. Gills aren't moving, tail is still, eye is relaxed and immobile. (Apparently dragging him backwards was lethal.) I know I feel a little sad.
The fish is tail-roped, lip-gaffed and bled, and we struggle to get him through the fish door. It's bigger than anything I've imagined, and we can safely say he weighs at least 50 pounds. He's iced down in the fish bag. Of course there's not enough ice. All throughout the fight we see tuna on the surface around us, acres and acres of them. You want to keep on fishing, but at the same time you want to preserve the memory of what just happened. We head back.
At the dock, the fish bag is opened up and the fish surprises again with its' size. Marco could actually crawl through the mouth (but he wouldn't). My mind wouldn't accept a fish that big and actually shrank the memory.
We'll try to post some pictures on reel-time.