SOA 3 Day Bluefin Trip, June 19-22, 2023

[pjstevko]

Safe travels everyone and hope you guys get into a great bite!

[Jim Fujitani]

Good Luck to all!!

The last couple of SOA trips have gotten into some of the bigger schoolie BFT!

[Rocket Dog]

Good luck guys, I hope you have good weather to boot as well.

[MarkT]

Spirit of Adventure Sportfishing is at H&M Landing.
 
The Alan Tani 3 day trip is complete. Despite a windy forecast, we took the guys out west to have a shot at the bluefin that is around. We were able to land 74 bluefin up to 155#. The 350-450g knife jigs and 16oz sinker bombs worked great at night. In the daytime, some schools bit the sinker rig well and some bit the 40# flyline, though landing percentage was probably 10% on 40# test. Overall there has been plenty of opportunity for an angler to catch what they need if they take advantage. Thank you to Alan Tani and all of his guys that came out fishing with us!

[sciaenops]

Thanks for sharing. Sounds like they did ALOT better than we did on our Father's Day 2-d.

[MarkT]

Thanks for sharing. Sounds like they did ALOT better than we did on our Father's Day 2-d.

You were on the Vagabond?

[sciaenops]

Thanks for sharing. Sounds like they did ALOT better than we did on our Father's Day 2-d.

You were on the Vagabond?

Yessir.

[CI_Seawolf]

Good morning, still moving from the boat.   Good trip, but tested your endurance and knot tying skills.  Those light line fish were definitely a challenge.  The bite was very selective at times.  I had a lot of fun just hanging out with the guys too!  Thanks to Alan for being a great charter master.  I hope some others will fill you in with their thoughts from the trip.

[David Hall]

sounds like everyone was very busy on deck.  Well done. 

[pjstevko]

Did you guys have to pay a fuel surcharge?

[bchen]

No fuel surcharge and thanks for the awesome sticker, PJ!  I've added it to my water bottle that also has last year's drag star sticker. 


My learning for the trip:

Night fishing: The bluefin are not looking at the color, pattern, or action (rolling, wobbling, etc.) of the lure.  Totally different from daytime feeding when they care about missing scales or a red nose.  My guess is that everything in the ocean that they can detect that is roughly the same size as a 16 oz weight / 500gr lure is edible. 

I started with a black, glossy rip roller (abalone pattern?), and ended up with a bent-and-straightened, paintless rip roller that still caught fish.  The folks using sinker bombs didn't have any issues either.  All of my lures were hit below the eye - lots of missing paint in the bottom 75%.  The bottom hook as to be good. 

Night bites were at 300 feet, day bites were 120-180.  Lots of current at 200.

Metered line was a winner. Marking line is possible, but way harder to see in the dark.  I normally use Daiwa J-braid that has 30ft sections for vertical jigging.  On this trip, I also had a reel with Izorline metered braid that's colored every 100 feet.  For night drops, the 100ft sections of izorline were much more convenient.  Big up/down sweeps worked and the tuna tended to hit on the drop (3 of 4).

Vertical jigging didn't produce during the daytime (on this trip...)   

I really enjoyed watching the two, extended MMA fish fights.  Sometimes the fish wins even when it's the one that ends up in the boat.  Landing a fish quicker is always better!

I really enjoyed the many conversations and will see you folks next year!

- Bernard

[pjstevko]

No fuel surcharge and thanks for the awesome sticker, PJ!  I've added it to my water bottle that also has last year's drag star sticker. 


My learning for the trip:

Night fishing: The bluefin are not looking at the color, pattern, or action (rolling, wobbling, etc.) of the lure.  Totally different from daytime feeding when they care about missing scales or a red nose.  My guess is that everything in the ocean that they can detect that is roughly the same size as a 16 oz weight / 500gr lure is edible. 

I started with a black, glossy rip roller (abalone pattern?), and ended up with a bent-and-straightened, paintless rip roller that still caught fish.  The folks using sinker bombs didn't have any issues either.  All of my lures were hit below the eye - lots of missing paint in the bottom 75%.  The bottom hook as to be good. 

Night bites were at 300 feet, day bites were 120-180.  Lots of current at 200.

Metered line was a winner. Marking line is possible, but way harder to see in the dark.  I normally use Daiwa J-braid that has 30ft sections for vertical jigging.  On this trip, I also had a reel with Izorline metered braid that's colored every 100 feet.  For night drops, the 100ft sections of izorline were much more convenient.  Big up/down sweeps worked and the tuna tended to hit on the drop (3 of 4).

Vertical jigging didn't produce during the daytime (on this trip...)   

I really enjoyed watching the two, extended MMA fish fights.  Sometimes the fish wins even when it's the one that ends up in the boat.  Landing a fish quicker is always better!

I really enjoyed the many conversations and will see you folks next year!

- Bernard

Bernard, thanks for the intel! How many fish did you and your son catch?

You're welcome for the stickers

[bchen]

Isaac had a character-building trip.  He hooked 10 and landed 2.  Turns out one of the guides on his go-to rod was damaged (we ran q-tips through all of the guides/rods at home so they were good, then) which cost him 2 break-offs before he diagnosed the problem.  He also had issues with his spectra digging into itself and cutting off.  Lots of learning for him.

He's hungry to fish again next year, though.

[Keta]

Spectra needs to be spooled tight.

[pjstevko]

Isaac had a character-building trip.  He hooked 10 and landed 2.  Turns out one of the guides on his go-to rod was damaged (we ran q-tips through all of the guides/rods at home so they were good, then) which cost him 2 break-offs before he diagnosed the problem.  He also had issues with his spectra digging into itself and cutting off.  Lots of learning for him.

He's hungry to fish again next year, though.

Glad he had a good trip!  There no better way to learn than to fail! Hopefully we'll end up on the same trip next year