Conditions looked to be epic, so I called Steve and said let's make a run to the 9-mile and see what we can see. At first, he had plans, but quickly changed them to accommodate his fishing addiction.
It started off slow as my brand new transom saver popped off the roller and when I was backing the boat down the ramp to prep for launch, I heard it go C~R~U~N~C~H~!!!!!! Oh well, not a good start of the day. The bad start #2 was I had a big travel mug full off Pete's Coffee just done perfect... and I left in the truck as I was puttering out towards the inlet. UGH...
One thing was for certain... Weather was just outstanding!
We quickly made a few dozen mackerel and headed out to the 9-mile where I was catching the previous Sunday. There was a double balloon floating and a bunch of boats piled up a 1/4 mile or more away so we started trolling and boxing in an area using the balloons as a visual guide. Sure enough, they were still there.
The hot color was pink and blue with a chrome head. It was getting smashed!
Steve kept changing up colors and was picking at them, but not as well. Having pink in it was pretty much the major sticking point to getting bites.
It was just fun as hell getting bite after bite. Sometimes I couldn't even get the troller out before getting bit again! Steve was having a blast!
And he was using his glasses to cover up his googly eyes.
There were plenty of Dolphin around, but I wanted nothing to do with those bastards! (Catching one earlier in the season)
My heavy troller then goes bendo and line is stripping out! I could barely get a turn on it and it was definitely a much bigger fish than anything we were playing with. It felt like a legit yellowfin for sure! Well, after finally getting it turned and at least coming my way, I felt it give a couple of good head shakes, but it stayed on again. Definitely tuna fight... Then I feel another few head shakes a a quick burst of speed and nothing. What a friggand sick feeling to have losing a nice fish.... ugh... well trollers out and back to trying for another one.
I then go back to back with some REAL skippies. First one was pretty good.
Next one was the big fish of the day (fatty). Man, Skipjack are an underappreciated fish!
After catching 16 skippies, we decided to look for paddies and use up some of the macks. We found a garbage can lid sized paddy and it was full of micro yellowtail! Soon as Steve mentioned it I went for them to pad my numbers! LOL
Then a ton of SKIPPIES Invaded us! The water was so blue and clear, you could see them darting all around the boat and crashing by the paddy! Steve hooked up on his bass rod, but I could only get them to chase my iron on the bay rod before they all disappeared. Steve's bass rod was a success and it was fun to watch him fight that thing. The fish moved out and so did we.
As we were trolling in, I saw a monster paddy. Much of our macks were dead by now, but we had a good amount of big ones left. I cast out on the paddy and it gets crushed! Unfortunately, it spit the mashed up bait. Next bait and I was on! Not big by any means, but still eater sized yellows!
We had wave after wave of yellows running out from under the paddy following the hooked one. Only issue is we had only giant macks left for bait and we burned through them pretty fast since the yellows were choking on them.
We ended up boating 4 and losing a few on this paddy. We said bye bye to the paddy and started our troll in.
Did I mention the water was electric blue?
Insane water. 64.6 inshore and 70.3 at the 9-mile. Blue and clean as could be!
On the way in I got one more Skippy which brought us up to 18 for the day. We packed in the trollers and made the run home.
What an awesome day on the big pond! Calm as hell, warm.... and plenty of fish. I was bummed that I lost the bigger tuna, but oh well. That's how it goes. There was also a guy who caught a triple digit yellowfin near bye. It was a YFT or Big Eye... not sure, but they were stoked!
Anyway, another great day on the water!
