So if you haven't noticed, summer is over. If you didn't catch no good sized fish this summer you probably spent too much time on the computer. As for myself, I think I've done well. In order to explain how I was able to accomplish this fantastic task I must take you back to July 31 2016. I flew to Las Vegas to meet up with my dad and travel to San Diego. The San Diego trip was busted but it did lead me closer to my goal of catching a mess of tuna. The first place I went was the tackle store:

I was blown away by how much stuff was stuffed in such a small space. they had millions of dollars worth of fishing tackle in a room the size of my closet and it was all very organized and easy to get to. Compact and efficient this is my explanation of San Diego. So I went to ask somebody what I should get to go catch a bluefin tuna. I talked to a lady she looked like maybe she was from Hawaii or something and she told me that the best bait to use for tuna would be the flat fall jig or the poppers. they say the big ones want the poppers and I was like extacy? and she said no fishing lure poppers:

She also told me the best rod and reels for fishing for tuna on the west coast.

Custom 9-foot rod with Avet reel or the other setup they really like is a Lexa 300 from Daiwa.
So anyways I bought one popper and one flat fall jig, I went and got on a party boat out of San Diego. the party boat broke down and I ended up catching 1 yellowtail.

we left this stupid place with a bunch of gays and people that don't know how to drive boats and went to Mexico. we didn't have enough money to go fishing in california, especially when they don't even know how to drive the boat - it's a lot cheaper to go fishing in Mexico so what the hell we just took off. The Mexican trip was pretty cool till we hit a military checkpoint:

Those a-holes tried to take my whole case of dr. Pepper. we managed to get away with only giving them 3 dr. Peppers but next time I'm going to stash my sodas so they don't see them when we drive up. So anyways we went half way down the coast of Baja California to erendira to try fishing there. no tuna there either. long story short I caught one large Dorado we really had a good time with the boat captain
on the smuggling boat but we also learned a very important life lesson, fishing is all about casting, according to the guys at Castro's camp. CASTING!
while I was down there at PUERTO SAN ISIDRO I learned a little bit about casting. we took off out of there went to Tecate back to Las Vegas back to the airport back to Texas. so then I'm sitting here for my birthday still no tuna I'm sitting here thinking I'm looking at the weather Summer's over what we do what we do I'm a failure we can never catch tuna you need to know life sucks what the hell so I started to put together another plan.... maybe the reason I haven't caught any tuna yet is because I was taking somebody that has bad luck with me every time. so I figured if I just go by myself and not worry about nobody else I can put myself on the fish and I won't be taking people with me to give me bad luck and complain. Most of the time when we go fishing out of Louisiana and I'm bringing friends and family it's usually just no fishing just bitching. So this time I go it alone. I knew that once I got down there I was going to need to find a deckhand but it's usually pretty easy so when I backed in to Grand Isle there was a guy there and he had one leg. so I told him I said hey do you want to go fishing tomorrow? we're leaving at 4:30 in the morning and going to the floaters! he was like hell yeah I love it! Straight up pirate this guy was. But even though we were able to catch a lot of bait we didn't do very well. A lot of baracudas:

So we went all the way. 100 miles offshore in really bad weather and sit there alllllll day. I am used to going there fishing in the morning and then in the afternoon after 5:30 good afternoon bite but in that middle of the day time usually not too good. If you leave at 6:30 7 o'clock in the morning to go offshore and it's really bad weather its going to take you 5 or 6 hours to get out there. if you can't get there by 9 o'clock in the morning you might as well wait until 5 o'clock in the afternoon to fish. So anyway we fished all day and we were tired and I took the pirate to the Medusa spar.
We were just screwing around freelining live bait when I saw the first fish busting out of the water at about 6pm

I remember very clearly my deckhand was done he was roasted he was laying back there saying his back hurt and he told me he'd been on the ocean his whole life
.. but a day on the boat with me can wear you out. I remember very clearly I told him- hey get your s@%& together mother f**** it's go time we gotta get this done man I'm not bull*****ing drive!. So we ran over there towards them and I cast my Shimano glow in the dark flat fall jig about 300 feet out there and just nailed them every time I cast I come back with a football-sized tuna. The first one I got to the boat spit the hook a couple took my Jig and felt really really heavy but then they just came off I ended up Landing 4 football size tuna the first time ever I finally got the skunk off the boat

That was last Saturday the weather was bad and we still managed to come home with some Bumble Bee tuna. finally we cooked it we clean the boat and then the next day I went to the pier to fish on Sunday because the weather was too bad again but I had a plan I was there on the pier by myself and I figured if I picked up some of the garbage everybody left everywhere I might get some more good luck and catch some fish. I had my live ladyfish about 250 feet off the pier in 30 feet of water. I started picking up garbage and about 30 minutes into it I caught a 40 pound bull shark. It was awesome I swear I didn't manage to get any pictures I was just sitting there on the pier and my phone had a dead battery . there is no better place to fish in the world besides the pier at bridgeside marina. I always catch something from the pier. So I figure I'll drive down to the shrimp docks on the North End of the island and just look for my friend who owns a boat that's parked down there. unfortunately I couldn't find him everybody said he was gone or sleeping or whatever so I figure with a sailor's life he's got he's too busy to mess with somebody from Texas. so I talk to a different shrimp boat guy and I was asking him if he knew how to catch tuna. he said no it's too dangerous offshore and it's scary but then another kid walks up... he was 18 years old and starts asking for cigarettes I gave him one and then he tells us that he's looking to buy a boat and he's going to go offshore and stay there for a month until he comes back with a boatload of fish and shrimp and whatever so I told him hey why don't you go with me tomorrow to go catch tuna I'll pick you up at 4:30 a.m. so he's like hell yeah so we did that on Monday I picked him up we got out there the first place we stopped to catch bait I caught 2 Bonitas about 8 inches long the most beautiful baby Bonita Bait I have ever seen of course I couldn't keep it alive in the live well but if I would have had that and I could have fish somewhere deep it would have been the Perfect bait it was the perfect day the perfect weather we were driving and we made it out there in time we were there at the farthest oil rig by 10:30 it was the perfect day with the perfect weather every rig we passed we saw bait and we got bait and we had every kind of bait in the boat mainly blue runners the first Blue Runner I put on the hook was the biggest and the fastest one of all of them it ran way out behind the boat so we set there with two blue Runners and drifted around the oil rig for about an hour finally we got blasted on. one of the rods went down and immediately was broke off, I think it was a big baracuda because I saw one sail out of the water about that same time. Probably the one I released on Saturday being a punk. the second Rod went down and stayed buried for like 2 hours. I knew it wasn't a shark I was fighting that sucker forever

So we was yanking on that sucker. I'm not going to lie and say I caught this fish all by myself, me and that kid were both wore out we both reeled it in. It was a nightmare. I knew that whatever fish was on the end of the line hadn't broke off or cut it yet and that as soon as I saw it I was going to jump in the water and kill it because it was fighting really hard. I even put the goggles on and swam down while the other guy was reeling the fish in to try to see what it was. we could not get that sucker to come up. Finally it came swimming up by itself and the first thing I thought when I saw it was a damn shark because it was so big and long but then I realized it was a shark with yellow diamonds on its side so I was like what the hell then I just knew that it was a f***ing yellowfin tuna I was freaking out I still cannot talk to this day I screamed so loud I blew my voice out yellowfin tuna! I started grabbing gaffs and Spears and knives and I just wanted to get that sucker next to the boat and Let it bleed out so I can eat it raw but the stupid fish had different ideas I swear to God this fish came up kind of looked at us looked at the back of the boat all the motors and just ran the damn lines straight by the motors and it made a big turn and came up again looked at us look for the motors and swim right by the motors we had those suckers tilted all the way up too there's no way we're going to lose this fish the kid was sitting there praying to God he said he would go to church every Sunday from now on he was just praying he said we ask for a lot of things Lord but please help us today I really mean this this time we really need to get this fish I was praying too we were in church. we were both sitting there screaming. this is the best thing ever please God help us. I must have shot two hours of video both of the cameras were full and we couldn't even get the fish up by the boat to take a picture somehow eventually that sucker gave up now I'm going to mention this even though it makes myself look like an [censored] I left the 2 speed reel in high-speed the whole time we reeled it in I never thought to click it down to the lower gear to make it easier, I was too excited, finally we got the fish on the side of the boat. we hung it with two gaffs and then I just shot that Harpoon through it just in case. when I hit it with the Harpoon it really went to sleep

[/URL] that was basically it we sit there all day trying to catch another one but we only caught a rainbow runner and 2 football size tuna black beans really really really hard work as soon as I got to the dock it was about 12 o'clock at night. I've been fishing since 4:30 that morning I figured what the hell I'm already late I might as well just drive home now so I put the boat on the trailer grab some bags of ice that my good friend had stashed for emergency since there was no place open with ice and we were almost out of ice in the hold. by the time I made it to Morgan City I was not going to be able to drive it was 2 a.m. so I park there and I figured I could clean the fish the next day 64 inches long 41 inches around and 120 pound fish

Honestly I don't know why I posted this just hoping one day I can get my own TV show or something. I'm just sitting here thinking is this the end?

I have some honorable mentions for this post if these Forum members read this post please acknowledge this thread hamster 1 Sea King Chuckwagon Tony H Land Pirate Billy Bob MO Pat goff bgh old frog Buzzard breath yalll all helped me on this journey oh yeah and lite liner and uncle zeek yalll said I was a troll.

Another boat sunk by the Coronado Islands that west coast fishing is risky!

Good story. Great fish.

wow, it was amazing

What a Great fish story!

Nice fish. Hit the floaters at night with jigs poppers and chunk. You should end up with something if you fish hard all night...

You're a legend!! Lol you sound like the kind of guy I need to be fishing with!!! Major props brothA!

Great pics

Looking for somebody to pay for gas so we can go get sushi

I started making my own flatfall jigs last night