Archive for June, 2010
Mako Mania 2010
Saturday, June 26th, 2010Left the dock at 4:30 and headed over to check out. Caught the darn train bridge…thought we would miss the first train but caught it. The checkout was much more organized and civil than years past when boats were circling to check out and racing out from the monument.
Broke the inlet set our course for our spot some 50 plus nautical and had a very uneventful ride out. Didn’t see much life on the ride out and the water was pretty warm the whole ride out and didn’t start dropping in temp till we were almost 45 off. Ride out took a little over 2 hours 30 minutes but was a nice ride out compared to the last two years.
Got the slick setup and rods out and before we got the last rod out had our first bite. First fish, mako, and released about a 100 pounder. Got reset and about 20-30 minutes later we get our second run off. It played with the bait for a while. Then hit another rod, fought the fish for a few minutes, get it near the boat and another small mako released. Get reset again, change all the baits out to what had the first two fish, bonita fillet and squid and reset all the rods.
Had a couple of run offs and a stripped bait. Then we get a double header, drop one and hook one for our third fish. I’m on the rod and get the fish to the boat and it is another small mako about 50-60 pounds. Released that fish, reset the rods and then it was quiet for a little while. We put a time limit on moving back up our slick and we get another run off that never came tight.
We moved back up the slick, about 45 minutes later we get another run off that quickly went slack. Then as we are getting ready to call it a day we get a real good run off. Get the other lines cleared, fight the fish for a little bit and nice dusky comes up. Released that one and got cleaned up and headed in.
We never found the fish we were looking for but had good action with several run offs, three makos to the boat, one pulled hook near the boat and a dusky.
We never found the cooler water but there was tons of life out there. Turtles, bait, birds. The guys a little further off in the Toms and Hudson were picking YFT and eyeballs but were covered up in bluefish and it was tough getting through them to the tuna. On the ride in the water ranged from 74 to 77! It looks to be shaping up for a good inshore tuna season.
On the ride in we heard from a friend of ours from down our dock that was racing in with a nice fish to weigh. They ended up hanging a nice fat 232 to put them in 3rd in Mako Fever and 4th in Mako Mania at the end of Saturday. We wish Brian and the crew of the Bella Mia the best of luck in maintaining their position through today.
First keeper fluke of 2010!
Saturday, June 5th, 2010
Broke the inlet shortly after 5 and starting working bunker, wouldn’t call it pods…they stretched pretty much from the inlet all the way south to Ortley/Lavalette. Some of them were thicker than others but unfortunately they were all happy bunker and swimming for their lives. Talked to Tuna Kahuna, Bri-Time, Loanfish and a couple others and everyone seemed to be doing the same…stocking up on crab bait.
Once I got a 10 gallon bucket of bunker I headed off to the Axel Carlson for sea bass and fluke. My first drift I put a nice 24″, 4 lb 12 oz fish in the box. As I was motoring back to the beginning of the drift a buddy a few slips down from me is anchoring up right on my MOB mark from where that fish was caught. I circled him a couple times, busted his stones and moved off to another piece. Only had short sea bass, cod and fluke after that.
Decided to look at a couple other wrecks but there wasn’t much life on the sonar so I didn’t bother stopping. Despite the wind against the tide in the river I decided to give it a shot. The kelp was pretty bad but if you kept your rig clean there were tons of fish there. Weeded through the shorts and put a 19 incher in the box before a boat anchored up right in the path of all who were drifting. Called it a day and headed in.
Had 52 degree water when I broke the inlet along the beach that warmed to 54/55 when I left bassing for bottom fishing. On the reef the surface was a bit warmer and was up to 60.3 at one point. After my buddy got back from wreck fishing they had a cooler full of sea bass and cod, 8 keeper cod I think he said with at least that many more shorts. They also had released a dozen or so keeper blackfish and countless short sea bass but no fluke for them while on the hook.
