7/28-31
We fished the beach haven white marlin invitational tournament and can't say enough about how much fun and how well run it is. As long as the boat is running we'll be fishing it next year.
Fished friday in some tight 5 to 6 footers along the tourney fence line. we were 92-97 miles from the bell bouy the whole day. the decision to run far paid off as we boated a 79 pound yellowfin good enough for a second place daily for day 1. We boated another yellowfin that was just a couple of pounds short of qualifying and jumped off a big white.
On day 2 we fished in a big fleet of boats in the toms. moved off into deeper water and found some nicer class yellowfins with some whites mixed in. We boated a couple of yellowfins over 70 pounds and pulled the hook on another after almost an hour long fight at 24 pounds of drag. tough luck but with everything done right we tried not to be upset.
Our 80.2 pound yellowfin was good enough for a third place daily in the calcuttas.
There were some great fish caught abd we were proud to be up on the leaderboard for 2nd place tuna points.
8/2
We fished the toms on a day troll and experienced slow fishing. Got to the tip around 4:45am and marked mountains of bait and lots of fish. Quickly picked up a small yellowfin and figured we'd have some nice fishing ahead of us. That was not the case as the bait went deep and so did the fish.
Picked another yellowfin around 9am and a few dolphins off the pots.
We didn't have a touch between then and 2pm so we ran into the bluefin grounds and put out a mixed bag of baits. Not long after we started we saw an explosion on a way back ballyhoo and it ended up being a 54" bluefin. About a half hour later we picked up another 46" bluefin on a spreader bar trolled in tight. With our bluefin limit and it being very late in the day we headed in.
8/3-4
Had a half and a three-quarter day fluke trip and hit the usual spots. Ended up with a few keepers on both trips with about a 15 to 1 throwback to keeper ratio.
8/6
Finally got a chance to meet Ray over at Atlantis Propellers and couldn't be happier with the work he and his guys did. Not only were the props done exactly when he said they'd be, he was shocked by how well the props performed!
We must have hit something running out in the dark at some point recently but the damage to the wheel was minimal from a prop scan point of view.. The prop was still within class 1 specs but we decided to tune both up anyway....
went from 48 gph at 22 knots back down to 43 gph at 23.5 knots. when you factor in more burn on the troll that's a 40 gallon savings on a typical canyon trip for us.
They certainly get the nod from me! Thanks again Ray!
