Gambler Friday bite dawn of blood.

[Ol Pedro]

Went comatose in my lazyboy again. Well we headed out to good conditions other than the shoal at the inlet entrance making it interesting with that swell that we had. When we got to the area around 7:00 pm it was a relief when I could count the boats on both sides on two hands(if I could count). We put her on a drift and had Mahi around the boat. They didn't seem to want to eat but we managed to get a few. Had a monster Blue Shark hang out for a while and set up for another drift. We got our first Yellowfin around 25lb. Released 2 Makos, 1 around 5' and the other closer to 7' . They didn't fight too hard. No jumps. I think that we picked 4 more yellows nothing over 35lbs. We did have one private boat try to slick us but Capt. Mike and ol devil tongue convinced him that it wasn't such a good idea.
We made a move and anchored up. We had caught a few Squid and had 6 in the live tote when we started to get some runoffs. We had a pick started and the fish were getting bigger. Magic time had started and we had 5 on at once. These units were monsters and I watched my loaned out Avet 2/4 almost get spooled with 30lbs of drag. What ever it was it was a screamer. The 80 lb topshot was sawed off by another line making it a 50yd topshot. Never had a fish violate my baby like that!
The last two hours was a full on Trench assault. Gaff to fish, rod to rail, stepping over the quivering tuna corpses, and slipping in their blood. Capt. Mike and Jay were on a customers fish in the bow that had Jay bent with the rod pointing at the water to keep it from rubbing for what had to be 20 minutes. Finally killing an 80lber. Capt. Walt hand lined 2 yellows in tangles bare handed !!! We finished the the trip with a 100lb class 3 gaffer at the horn. We had to leave biting fish as we had a turn around. 43 yellowfin and 6-8 Mahi not too bad.
60-80lb on the rods and the same for leaders. No need for floro. I was disappointed that we did not catch more on the live squid. It was a toss up between sardines and butters with live squid when we were scratching.
It was great to be out with Capt. Mike, Capt.Walt, Jay, Kaden, and Grandson Chris. Thank you to all the great customers , the crews, and Capt. Bob for making an old man's dream come true.
Now let's do it again tomorrow!

[Pennsy Guy]

Way to go, Pete---excellent report, keeps my blood flowing. Glad to hear they're finally eating sardines as well as the butters; they're much nicer looking on the retrieve for a hook up...