Finally got offshore this season! 8/5-8/6

[Jigman13]

Headed east to Montauk to fish aboard my dads vessel, Shannon, midday Saturday. Boat was locked and loaded and we shoved off at 230am Sunday morning. Lumpy ride out to stay the least! Upon arrival at 630am lines went in. Around noon we had a strike and stuck a beefy white marlin down the middle on a green Schneider. Quick release boatside once we popped the hook. Trolled till 2 pm-ish with one more knock down from a small almaco jack off a pot. Switched over to deep dropping by 230 PM and plucked market golden tiles in 650-800' of water. Thank God for electric reels! Switched back to the troll around 430/5 PM and nada into the dark. We marked a lot of fish but they never came up from 100' + down. Not much talk in the radio, either.

Found some slightly cooler water off the edge and set up to chunk in 77 degrees. 10 min into chunking we had a monster tiger come straight at the transom and turned starboard at the last min. Very cool.

About 45 min to hr later tons of squid and various porpoise everywhere...but no tuna. Fast forward to 2 am radio chatter with bites here and there but nothing crazy. Around 3 am a massive single squid shot outta the water and banged against the transom. Quick scoop with the net and sent it down 50'. Before even setting the drag the reel started screaming. Finally... one on. Short work and we decked a 50/60 yellowfin. That was it for the chunk.

I headed below at 4 am when the morning shift woke up. They started the false dawn switch to get back on the troll. Having 8 of 11 lines out at 545 I hear my father yell ONE ON! I think I hit the ceiling of the gallery bunk and bolted outside where I watched a Wolfpack blow through the spread.

Port long rigger line was severed immediately right at the hook or above the hook. Bye bye Schneider! Port short rigger with a sterling bar was wrecked but didnt stick. Port flat line with 18" purple sterling machine bar gets dumped and sticks. Starboard short rigger with a sterling bar also got smashed but I think the fish hit the teaser vs the stinger. They strike so damn violently!

My buddy chris, his first canyon trip ever, was up on the rod. We strapped him in to do battle. Following direction and putting the screws to the fish he worked the fish to swivel. I leadered while 2 gaff guys sunk shots right under the gill plates. Slid her thru the door and game over!

Lines right back out and then snapped some pics. Fish was prob 150-170. Chris is about 5'9-5'10 and 230 lbs for perspective. Pics below.

We trolled till noon and no more tuna action so we switched back to deep drop. More tiles for the box.lots of doubles and one 20-25 lb fish. Hit 2 pots before pointing her home and put one mahi in the boat from a scarcely populated high flyer. That's all she wrote!

1 white marlin
1 yellowfin
1 nice bigeye
1 mahi
35 tile fish

Here's some shots. Can't wait to get back out!

[Gerry Zagorski]

Great report and thanks for sharing it here

[AndyS]

Great report !!
Love that "gold" color on the Bigeyes. Electric reels rock ! Nice job on the collar, you do that ?
Question, you didn't have a squid jig handy to hook a few live ones to catch and send deep ?

[thmyorke1]

That sure looks tasty! Amazing fish.

JMTuna!

[Jigman13]

Thanks guys!

Andy, I'm the butcher on the boat. I enjoy the collaring! Quick work with dexter Russell serrated and a fillet knife!

The squid were really picky. We used floating jigs, slow sink jigs, old school ande jigs, sabikis and even trebles but we were only able to catch 3 and netted another. Had a couple 7-8" flying fish too but no hits on those bridled and sent down.

[kcritch]

Nicely done their J. Sounds like a blast. Glad you were able to get out there.

Just say when! HA!