Meet up at the slip shortly after midnight. With a crew of Dimitry, Kevin, Alex and myself we get loaded up, organized and underway just after 3 am or so.
Broke the CapeMay inlet to find 3-4's and fog which lasted till about 15miles out or so.
Slowed down across the hotdog, checking for life. Was alot of boat traffic and decided to head to massey's for more solitude, hoping for better action.
Trolled massey's and numerous lumps for a bit, and the 30 line, for a couple knockdowns, but no solid hook ups. Had a variety of bars, chains, and bally's.
Have heard of the morning bite going to crap as the traffic picked up, but coming back later in the day after the fleet left.
So with that idea, we headed back to the hotdog to find a nice spot to set up and start chunking. Found a nice lump with bait on it and went to work.
As the fleet thinned out, the action really did pick back up. Was marking tons of bait passing under the boat, and what we believed to be tunas, constantly passing under us. Seen a few sharks finning the surface, skippy's going by, and what seemed like tuna swimming on the surface.
Getting a few pickups but no solid connects, fish keep dropping the hook. Finally something hooks up, and goes right to the anchor line, before we can unhook it.
It's big, but not taking line, we assume its wrapped on the anchor, so we pull up alongside and pull the anchor hoping its still there. Nope, not wrapped onto the anchor, we still have a chance.
After another half hour or so we can seen color real deep,,, what the heck is it? We get some line in and it takes it right back. Finally it gets close enough to see,,, Some kind of giant ray, had to be every bit of 7-8' across,, got as much back from him as we could and cut the line.
Get a nice hook up with a decent run off and then slacks, crimp failure. Shortly after that another nice run off, and after 15 minutes or so, line goes slack,,,, Hook snapped. Whole boats screaming WTF!,,,, back to the anchor ball.
By now the area surrounding us is really starting to get fishy, and we pretty much have the hotdog all to ourselves.
With the sounds of a penn 50 giving a couple slow clicks, followed by a scream, its game on again. 15 minutes later a nice 48" yellowfin in the box, and back onto the anchor, to continue the chunks.
With in 30 minutes of that fish we see a school of somethings swimming near the surface heading straight for our chunk slick. I grab the penn 50 with a sardine and no weight and start hand feeding it out. Get it out about 150 feet or so and nothing happened. Pass off the job of pulling the line out to Kevin so I can try and jig for a few. He puts two more pulls of line out and it gets hammered,, fish on.
Wish I can say we got this one in quick, but it didn't. Gain line, lose line, all the while we're chasing it down all over the place.
The whole crew took turns on the rod, as this thing was a beast, and we wanted to keep the heat on it, we cycled through at least 4 times over the period of an hour or more, and it was a classic fight to the finish.
Dimitry is on the rod, we see some color,,, its deep, and huge, but not in the boat yet.
I'm called up to bat to try and finish him off. It took all I had to power this fish in. The fight to the end was very tough, and I earned every foot of that line back inch by inch.
Get him close to the surface and its decided he's not over 72",,,, It seemed like an eternity for that last 10 feet or so and for the gaff to get sunk. Dimitry swings a perfect text book gaff shot. It takes a second gaff and a heave-ho to get him over the rail. Success!!!! Its a slob, all 60" of him!
High fives, pictures, where'd the anchor ball go, and lets go home, we have a ton of work todo once we get back.
Catching a fish this size really makes you respect the guys who actually boat bigger. The whole boat was exhausted. Myself, I couldn't even snap a rubber band to get a sinker off of a line.
But enough of story time, Here's what everyone really wants,,,, Pics
First the yellowfin, 48"
And the slob,,,,
Alex putting on the heat
Kevin
Dimitry
Yours truly
