SOA II October 20-30, 2020 Jim Hart/Grady White Charter

[alantani]

the first year i stepped on board the spirit of adventure was august 31st, 1997.  i remember that day because it was the same day that princess diana died.  since then, i've only missed two years.  the old group was the grady white charter, now run by jim hart, and it is still going.  this year they had a few spots open.  there was only a week between the two trips, but i got all of my honey do's done and got a hall pass from my wife.   so, back on the boat for a 10-day!!!  packing was easy.  all of my gear was already cleaned up from the last trip, everything was restocked, and i had all of my flat falls rigged.



this time we headed straight out for bluefin first.  we zipped through almost the entire the kite rotation on the first day.  



even got partway through on the second day!





this fish was weighed at the dock without guts and gills and tipped the scales at 168.  figure 185 coming over the rail.  i was finally able to land a fish on my own rod, the custom invictus and penn 50 visx.  with 40 pounds of drag at strike, it was maybe 15 minutes from hook up to gaff.



during the two days that we spent chasing bluefin, i was able to land three more fish with flat falls during the daytime.  one was around 60 pounds, the other two were mid 80's.  you can see the double hook rig that i was talking about earlier.



and then finally number five!  at the dock, this first place jackpot winner tipped the scales at 96.8, so figure 105 to 107 over the rail.  jeff stokes clocked me out at 11 minutes.  it was landed with a custom phenix black diamond hybrid 838mh and a slightly modified penn torque 15LD2, 30 pound seaguar blue label and an owner 1/0 ringed flyliner.  



from tanner bank, we ran down the coast for paddy fishing and yellowtail, then took a long run to alijos.  



we stuck nearly 50 wahoo at the rocks.  i hooked up twice on the troll.  



the first fish made it over the rail but nearly straightened out the hook of my favorite mag trak.  i lost the mag trak, leader and all, clean cut, on the second hookup.  i'm thinking that i was sharked, so i am taking a look at possibly running 400 pound 49-strand wire instead of 275, and 6 feet instead of 3.  



total for the trip was 5 bluefin, 3 wahoo, and two yellowtail, yellowfin and dorado each.  it was a massive processing bill, but well worth it.  

[steelfish]

living the dream Alan, thats what I want to do when I retire

[Hardy Boy]

Nice work Alan !! Save a pack of wahoo and BFT for your trip to Hardy so I can try a taste !!


Cheers:

Todd

[DFT]

Great job Alan.

[stoked4fishin]

Another great trip Alan!  So glad you made it!  Alan also was nice enough to build quite a few flying fish rigs for the boat as well.  We were hanging BFT on them in no time, and not a single failure!  Can't wait til next year!

[sciaenops]

Quality fish and report.  thanks for waking up the hoo at the Rocks for us, Alan. We hit them a week later (on Wed Nov 4) on the AA.  I got one each on bait, bomb and raider jig.  Sharks were present but left us alone for the most part.