Yes .... very tiring for us sexygenarians ....

Awesome trip! Fishing was a little tough but we managed to scratch out a decent catch. I caught a small yellowfin on a school of busting tuna on the way out Friday then went fishless until Sunday morning. I was plagued by the cantgetbit virus but ended up with a small YF a decent BF a limit of nice snappers and a king size cuda. Hooked a couple of ufo's at tequila that i couldn't turn with heavy drag and both thumbs on the spool! My son Brandon totaled with 2 nice BF and a limit of snappers. He lost several nice BF to the GOM tax man known as cudas and had a hook up on something he couldn't put the brakes on fishing near the bottom at tequila. All in all even though the fishing was slow we had a great time with a good bunch of folks and we are looking forward to our next trip.

I think we had about a dozen yellowfin total, but only seven or so were over 25 pounds. There were a number that were barely legal. I am guessing that we kept maybe 60 blackfin after the 20 or so we chopped up for chunk bait. Plus a couple very large Warsaw Grouper and maybe a half-dozen AJ's and the double boat limit of nice red snapper.

This was definitely an odd trip. I put in hours chunk fishing even when everybody had resorted to nothing but jigging. I caught one jumbo blackfin; maybe 25# on my chunking rig, but he came off of a live flyer strung through the lips on my 6/0 circle hook.

Two strange things I observed- being able to catch yellowfin only on jigs was one, but I also noticed that the yellowfin we did catch had relatively little fight in them.

The fishing was tough, but this was still a really fun trip for my money. This was a great group of guys with a balance of experience and beginners that were really excited to be there. We did well to come home with what we did given how slow the bite was. I can't recall losing any large yellowfin at the boat, despite the tangles on nearly all of them.

Thanks to Willie and the Captain and crew for doing a first-rate job of organizing. It wasn't an epic trip, but it was a very good and memorable trip.

-Pat

What a experience for a 1st timer!!!

No yellowtail, but I was invited to share in some sashami from a member who donated hit YFT catch.
Fought hard jiging for Blk Fin, managed only 10, but a workout for me.
Highlight ( or lowlight) , was a 5 foot hammerhead. Here I am trying to get some meat to bring home to the family, and I get this "huge" hit....fighting begins, only to find out at the end its a hammerhead....GREAT experience, no meat...also saw a MAKO Shark breach the water twice with the metal leader that had a 1/2 blk fin on it...AMAZING, and the MAKO did break the leader on the 2nd breach...WOW...and trying to figure out when to sleep / eat / fish was A GREAT experience...I WILL BE back, with a change of gear...
Thanks Wille for a GREAT trip!

Mike ....

I enjoyed fishing with you and John. I told Willie that for first timers you guys were hardcore and will make great tunaheads.


Bobby

Great weather and enjoyed the trip.
Caught one YFT caught deep on the jig. Chuck fishing was like fishing in a lake.... nothing there. There was not a top water bite. The rig fishing was fun, caught a nice Warsaw - and a few times something caught me, pulled me into the rig. I
had Zero Zip control on a few of what ever they where.
May be BIG Ajs or Groupers. Hope to see some of you on the
TFF trip in Nov., see you then!

no pictures from the trip..???

Sorry, No pictures. Dock took a group picture should be on
the internet soon...fishermans wharf port a
Quick verbal of all that happened..... Seas 1ft or less
first two days. weather picture perfect. Last day coming in
normal 3-4.
Trolling on way out..nothing. Seas so calm on way out you
could see every fish working to top. We stopped on the way
out on feeding tuna. Boat caught 1 YFT 1 BFT on top water,
fish would go down as soon as we started throwing jigs into
them.
Headed on out to floater - No top water action - Chucking
did not work - Just normal small BFT - Deep Jigging was the
only productive way to get YFT on boat. Cudas everywhere.
Back to 500'ft deep dropping day-time for AJ-grouper.
Highlights - Nice 125lb YFT - 145 Warsaw - 3-4 big ajs
limit of snapper for everyone way in. Scat Cat great boat
and crew.

Thanks for the report. Do you know what floaters you guys fished?

Rig Diana - there where lots of boats due to perfect seas.
Could have something to due with poor YFT bite. And why they
where so deep.

Thanks. We're going on the scat cat in a couple of weeks, and I was just curious.

flat seas and bluebird skies make the bite tough in any type of water (fresh or salt). yall did damn good to adapt to the conditions and put fish in the boat! Very impressive!

TBB'10 folks,

Trying to remember the Tuna Guide from Venice , LA that we talked about.
Rance, Andy, Pat, Brian or Jim, I think his name started with Eddie ???

If you remember, please post.

Cheers,
Mike

Eddie Burger, perhaps?

yep !