Fishing Report 10/11 - 10/12

The Small Fortune sailed again this weekend with a crew of 8. As always we had Captain Steve at the helm. David was there as well, with his Middlebury friends Slibby Sam, Johnny (aka "pole sitter", aka "whooping crane"), and Jeremy (aka "I can drive with a girl around each arm"). Andrew (aka "Hard Hose") and Tony (aka the "One Armed Bandit") were also along for the trip.

This weekend we decided to take a longer run than we normally do and we headed to the Atlantis Canyon, as opposed to Block Canyon (Fish Tails). There were better reports and good temperature readings out there, so we figured we'd give it a shot. We started trolling around 2:30 pm on Saturday and only had one knockdown, no hookups.

We settled in for the night chunk on the canyon wall and quickly had a fish take a chunk only to lose it a minute later. Then we had a double header shortly after that, landing a nice albacore and losing a nice yellowfin. Here's a pic of Johnny's albacore:

I'm embarrased to say that both lost fish were my fault. I'll mention it here so no one else makes this mistake. When crimping our chunk lines to the swivel, I used crimps designed for 150lb test when we were using 80 lb test. Now when you crimp the line, it looks so unbelievably tight that you would never imagine the line pulling out. Well people say that tuna can find any and every weakness that you have in your tackle. If you give them the chance, they will get away. And they did twice. I'm still kicking myself over it! So don't let it happen to you.

The night time chunk is an incredible experience. We use HydroGlow fluorescent lights in the water to light up the area all around the boat. This attracts schools of squid and baitfish to the boat, with the idea that where there is bait, the tuna will show up. It's hard to get a feeling of what this is like when you are way out in the middle of the ocean. I was able to take a picture and brighten it to show the light and some squid swimming around it. It truly is like watching the Discovery Channel live in person.


Back to the report. Late in the night, Andrew was able to catch a real nice Mahi on a chunk. In the morning, we got back up on the troll and found a great weed mat. We were able to pick up two more mahi and a nice yellowfin. We worked a temperature break where the water temp went from 60 degrees to 70 degrees in the matter of a few hundred feet. Normally these types of breaks are chock loaded with tuna. Unfortunately it wasn't the case this time. Here's Sam's yellowfin:


David and Sam were taking pictures like crazed papparazi lunatics, so I'm sure there will be a follow up post with a lot more shots. It was a short and slow tuna season this year, after a spectacular one last year. Hopefully they just took a year off and we will hit them hard next year.