SOA 3-day, July 5-8, 2024

[pjstevko]

Double mustad heavy jigging hooks on size 7/0 on the bottom of the jig

[Keta]

Hooks are large enough, it happens    but still not good though.

[pjstevko]

Yeah I did everything right on both fish it's just the name of the game sometimes

[Keta]

Yup.

[pjstevko]

Attached is the jig that hooked and landed my fish and a pic of the leader that got chewed through.  Looking at the pic of the leader now it might have burned off by braid....

[Bill B]

Yeah looks like you got cut off brother. Bill

[pjstevko]

Yeah looks like you got cut off brother. Bill

It happens....

[Keta]

Does not look like a chew through.

[pjstevko]

Day 1 started for me at about 9:30am after a few hours of sleep.  I hit the fruit and cereal bar with a cup of coffee for breakfast and tried to wake up. A about a dozen people were awake and fishing with only a couple fish caught in the grey light. 

There wasn't much action to talk about for most of the day until around 3pm when we found a couple impressive foamers, it looked like something you'd see on Nat Geo! The fish in these foamers were big,
100 plus pounders and bigger. Once we rolled up on the foamers the bow got real crowded with guys hoping to hook up on poppers and irons. One guy had his clear popper boiled on but didn't connect. We chased the foamer around for an hour or so before anyone got bit. We slid up to a big foamer and it stayed up about 5 sec longer than normal and the lures fly....BITER! A guy got bit on a surface iron and starts to get worked over by a freight train of a bft on a spinner. The fish is pulling drag and racing all over the place but he starts to gain ground.  He and the deckhand work the fish for about 30 minutes before the fish gained his freedom.  We chased the fish until the sun went down then went on the hunt for the night bite.  We found a lot of schools throughout the night and would hook 1-3 per stop.  A handful of large sized fished came over the rail throughout the night with the majority of the fish weighing 30-70lbs. I had a hook up at around 1:30 am and made quick work of an estimated 40# lber. We stop on a couple more schools and about 4am I'm bit again.  I'm getting the fish up quickly and then I'm caught up in a 5 way tangle which caused some slack in my line as the deckhand untangled the other lines and the fish is gone.  Not discouraged I go right back to the rail and fished hard until around 5:30 am and called it a night. 

[pjstevko]

Pics

[Brewcrafter]

Sounds like you and the rest of the group definitely put in the rail time; and while vampire fishing for bluefin seems to be the best course it is a tough one!  - john

[natch!]

 What? Warren didn't use one of his Newells to get that one?

 Jack

[MarkT]

Where were you fishing?

[Hamachi]

I believe we were fishing the Osborne out near San Nicolas and Santa Barbara. Shoot, Calstar 770xxxh unlimited with 30w okuma makaira I felt under gunned! 100 yds. Of 200 braid for rub leader to 130 loop to loop and 200 fluro on the 420 long jig.

[Mjg378]

Nice fish Warren!