carlynewlondon

The crew arrived at 6:00AM and we proceeded to get the boat ready. As we were laying out all the gear I noticed I only had 2 harnesses. That’s funny I thought I had 3 and my bucket harness was missing. That was an omen something was going to happen. Stopped in Montauk for fuel ($4.35 cash diesel at MMB not bad), ice, updated satellite shot, and more bait and it was off on a course for the Fish Tails.

Lines in at about noon on the flats north of the tails and we trolled up to the tip. Turned west at the SW corner and zigzagged from 125fathoms to 70 fathoms on our westward trip. The break was somewhat east of The Dip. We started the day in 74 degree water and were now at a solid 77. Still nothing off of the flyers. The ones with growth on them were picked clean of fish. Radio chatter indicated rat YFT were on the flats north of the dip so we changed course with plans to try to get some action.

As we hit 55 fathoms and 78.5 degree water at 4:00PM just SSE of the dip 5 rods went of with 4 staying tight. Number 5 broke off and sent a fish away with a nice piece of jewelry. After a bit 4 nice 40-50 lb class YFT were on the deck. In the confusion a spreader bar went overboard and tangled in the running gear. Ccrew member Hunter enthusiastically volunteered to put on the mask and cut things loose. Back on the troll we immediately wend 4 ½ for 5 on 40 lb class YFT. I say 4 1/2 because one got chopped in half by something 5 feet from the transom. I’m sure Hunter has the chills this morning just thinking about it. From here things got crazy and a little foggy as far as memory goes. We spent the next couple hours bailing tuna and watching marlin crash the spread. The highlight was going 8/8 on rat YFT and a skippy, not an easy task with a crew of 6. In the middle of this craziness the long port rigger runs off and everyone yells MARLIN. The picture doesn’t do it justice but I’ll bet this fish neared 100 lbs. A couple passes later again MARLIN on the long port but this one just shot across the spread and took of 50 yards of line in the blink of an eye and came un buttoned. Both marlin knock downs were on ballyhoo.

When it got dark we agreed to troll to the 300 fathom of The Dip to try for a sword overnight. About a couple miles into it 3 rods go down, more tuna and a skippy. As we are dealing with 2 rods that are still in the water get hit bringing more tuna to the boat one of which was a chubby 30 pounder. We thought it prudent at this point not to try to deploy the spread again so we shot off to the deep with plans to sword at night and troll for BE in the morning. At his point we thought we had 13 fish in the boxes.

The wind picked up to a steady 20 out of the NW overnight which made fishing (and napping difficult. We had a mako up to the boat at 3:30AM that chewed through the 150lb sword rig leader. Other than that no action for us. Did have bait intermittently around the boat all night long and the occasional fish mark on the fish finder. Chatter on the radio was a couple boats had 6-8 on the chunk overnight, several more had 2-4 but the majority skunked out.

Up on the troll in the morning we put out a short spread (10 rods) hoping for an eyeball but it wasn’t to be for us. The BE bite was supposed to have been good Saturday morning but of course we are there Sunday. About 8:00AM we decided to go back up to the flats to se if we could find the fish from the day before to add a couple more to the box. The bait that was there the day before had departed so after an hour or so we went exploring the edge. Around 10:00 AM the shotgun running goes of and a grey hounding white marlin dumps a 30VSW. Before we could get the spread cleared he was off. Poked around the edge for a while then started a northerly troll for home. As we went over where we caught the day before we notice a fleet of boats with a couple of them hooked up. Spent a hour or so but only managed one knock down that we lost ½ way to the boat.

Back at the dock we were surprised to see we had a miscount. Actual tally was 17 YFT and 2 SJ’s. That doesn’t count the ½ fish (does that mean we actually had a limit?) or the bunch we let go because they didn’t look quite legal. While we didn’t set any records for size the biggest fish went an honest 50 plus and the smallest couple were 30 inches

Peckster

Nice trip! Sounds like you guys worked your asses off - nice to be busy!!!! Great to hear that some life is back in the area with some YFT to be found at the other end of the line. Hope you will post some pics!!

carlynewlondon

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