Sea Horse Report: Great Overnight Trip!

Suffering from a severe case of tuna fever, and with the counts of albacore and bluefin getting better, I decided to hop on the overnight on the Sea Horse Saturday night. I got a bit worried, because the Horse's counts hadn't been so good the past week, but since some of my friends were on the boat, I thought it would be good anyway.

My dad wasn't on with me on this one - he doesn't do so well on the Horse. He dropped me off at our friends, Lee and Jeanne's house, and he went twilight fishing. Anyway, we got down to the landing at 7:00, first in line. We soon met up with our friend and fellow Saturday regular, Eddie. Tyler rolled the boat in at around 8:30, and went off to get fueled up. He had a charter, and they didn't do so well. We were relieved to find out that it was a rental rod charter!

They got back from the fuel dock, and we found out that Butch and Jordan were going home, so we were left with Captain Tyler Elzig, Second Ticket Ricky Russell, Sanjay in the galley, and Mike Austin on deck. Boarded soon after, set up my stuff, got JP squared away, and went to bed with tuna dreams...

Woke up a 1/2 hour before greylight. Eddie and Lee set out a couple of trollers before the rotation started, and right at greylight, Eddie got hooked up. What we thought was a bonito was actually a micro-albacore, the smallest of the day. No bait fish at that stop, so we kept going.

Not too long after that, HOOKUP!!! We got about 10 bait fish on that stop, including myself, for this little (actually one of the bigger) albacore.

 

 

Not long after that, we had a triple jig strike on the albacore, but no bait fish. Then, we hit a paddy for a dorito. That was it for a couple of hours. We kept driving, seeing dolphin, but no jig strikes. So, we turned back around, and went back to where we got the albies.

We hit a couple of paddys with break-offs, which was a put down, but we kept trucking. One thing that made me mad, as well as Tyler and my friends, was that people had cement feet! Also, they would throw in their bait too early, which resulted in many tangles. It is very important to listen to the crew and drop in a bait properly when tuna fishing.

 

After those paddys, Jeanne spotted a paddy, so we rolled up on it. We were on it all of two minutes, and I was bit! I knew right away it wasn't a dorito, maybe a YFT or a YT. Went back and forth, fighting to escape tangles, and the fish took me on the other side. Then, the death spiral. It taxed me to the toll. It was in a death spiral for 10 minutes, while I was getting short pumps on it. Tyler and Mike were right with me, but I sure didn't need coaching! They said I was doing just fine (which I expected anyway). Got it up, and Mike stuck it. Here it is...

 

 

My arms were jello. I took a little break, but was back at it at the next paddy. Nailed a dodo (not a dorito), and followed it through the gauntlet of lines up the side, around the bow, and over to the port side. Mike stuck it again (he's a good shot), and a nice bull came over the rail.

 

Hit some more paddys after that for one more bull dorado (caught by Eddie), and some rat yellows and doritos. Losing track of the time, Tyler called it quits, but looked for another 10 miles on the course for home. I just got my boots off, put on my sandals, and wound down all my stuff, when Tyler decided to stop on a school of dolphin. No biters, so we were on our way home.

And you guessed it, I won jackpot (again). A $170 jackpot that went straight to the crew. I love to see the crews' faces when I hand them the jackpot.

Jackpot Jimmy Strikes Again!!!

 

 

Ricky and Mike did the honors of cutting my fish, and they did a heck of a job!

Fish Before...

Fish During...

 

...and Fish After

We estimated my yellowtail to be 32-35 pounds. My personal best yellow. Anyway, our final count was:
17 Dorado (2 Bulls and 12 Doritos)
14 Albacore
4 Yellowtail (1 Hog and 3 Rats)

Great crew, great weather, great fishing. What more could you ask for?