Ran offshore Friday Night left the dock around 6PM, on board was 0ffshoreRyan, Brickken, CaboDave, & ITBob. Arrived at the fishing grounds around about 9:30 and set up the chunk. The action this trip was on the chunk. The new underwater lights were unbelievable; it was like we were at the aquarium.
Within 5 minutes of turning on the lights the strangest fish approached the boat. We weren't sure exactly what it was until it was about 10 feet away and then we realized it was a nice size sun fish. It loved the lights and swam right up to the boat, under the platform and made contact with the lights.
Off he went and our next visitor swam into the outskirts of the lights. Had no problem identifying him, a nice brown shark. He hung out eating our chunk and then decided perhaps what was on the lines was better. The line went off and Ryan threw on his harness and fought him for about ten minutes before we lost him. He disappeared for awhile. We started seeing squid and threw in the squiders and within minutes had 5 lines with swimming baits.
A white marlin decided this was pretty good eating and took off. At first we thought we had our brown friend again, then he jumped just on the outskirts of the lights and we thought Mako. Next thing we knew he was jumping all over the water right in front of us, dancing on the top and we realized we had a white marlin. Ryan again was fighting this one and had him on the line for about 10-15 minutes before we lost him. Tried to get pictures but it was so dark they didn't come out. Have one somewhat blurry showing Ryan fighting the marlin which I've attached.
Back to squidding and loading the bucket with bait when we had a quick runoff. Five minutes later we had a hammerhead on the line. Bob was successful in bringing him to the boat but again couldn't get the flash to stop flashing and take a picture. Our brown friend returned grabbed a line with a squid in it that was just hanging off the transom as we were rigging. Bit it in half as we scrambled to pull it back in and off he went. Was checking the baits as we retrieved one of the lines; Bob and I were looking at it and looking and saying what the heck is that when we realized fish on; had a small dolphin on the line. We reacted with a jerk; it jumped and off it went.
Started the troll around 5:30 AM. Trolled through the 100 square where we set up in beautiful blue 78 degree water. No tuna. Trolled the deep and went to the West Wall around the elbow. Nada.
Trolled the deep and went to the East Wall in dirty green water. Life was all around us. Saw porpoises, pilot whales, no tuna. Trolled up the east wall and around the tip. Nada.
Trolled with livelined squids, green machines, switched up to ballyhoo, rainbow spreaders, tried black and purple spreaders, tuna clones daisy chains all types of mixtures and... NADA...
We trolled the edge of the warm water, we trolled the green water/blue water edge. The canyon ledges... you name it we tried trolling it... Quit trolling after 10 hours and headed home.
Notice the blue water vs. green water in the pictures...the blue was unbelievable...
ended up with NMFTF (No meat for the fridge)
but had a great time.
