Blue Water Therapy

The Forecast : They Missed It
The Fish : Weren't Hungry

Our morning started late the 4:45am wake up call never came so we where up a quarter after five and headed out the door, little before six we where planing out. We knew it was going to be a bumpy ride, but two miles outside the inlet we hit a pretty high six foot swell and that set the tone for the day. The sea was mostly two footers with some four mixed in. Then a six footer would sneak up on us, they would send us climbing up and crashing down with a thud that was felt with big swell. Alright little clarification this was not a scene from deadliest catch, but rather a rough run offshore in a 23.5ft boat put into English class description. Anyways the forecast read 2 to 4ft with 5 to 15mph winds, yeah it blew 15 plus from the start.

My postcard pic from the ride in 

We went on to pass the king fisherman at the knuckle 9 buoy and found a nice sport fisher to follow out. This made for a bit better ride as the sport fisher cut down some of the waves. He soon stopped out at the 14 buoy which is about halfway to the big rock. We proceed on for another hour till we reached 60 fathoms near the big rock.

Jeff set the lines and I drove the boat as the weather was to rough to set the boat in gear and both of us set the baits. The radio was not giving me any hope as only one boat had picked up a peanut dolphin. So we trolled on, and about an hour later...click the line come out of the outrigger but no drag screams, must be grass.

It's a tuna after it, looking back a yellowfin tuna running the surface diving at bait relentlessly. You could see it's football shape and tail which each rise and dive. Then he was gone, just gone...The tail of the bait had been bitten off and the leader had some scars, we had just missed a 50 pound tuna by less than an inch. However the show was spectacular, so we circled area never found a hook up. The desperation and disappointment of the voice on the radio revealed no new dolphin, so everyone was just dragging baits.

As twelve approached me and Jeff where shot out of hope,eating cookies, and talking about the tuna we missed. The the drag screams off the portside we, our reaction time was far from great as we kinda looked at the rod then back at each other. Jeff jumps up and yells fish on, I clear lines as the drag runs scream, the fight lasted about five minutes as I stood there with a hand on the wheel and one on the gaff.

As the dolphin neared there was no one with him, I tried to talk Jeff into letting me fight and he become the gaff man. Yeah he pretty much told me to be a man a stick em, my gaff history is far from good as practice on bailers was a fail. This was clutch time I couldn't mess this up, so the dolphin cruised up to the side and I stuck em and slung him up in the boat like I had been doing it for years.

That was the only dolphin we caught but it was a still good day, I had gaffed my first good dolphin and Jeff didn't have to go to the office.