8/13/05 - hmb albacore

[alantani]

i was looking at the fishing reports and the weather last friday. the boat was completely rigged and my dad, brother, nephew were coming into town for an albacore run. knowing the boat would ride heavy with the new motor, the kicker and the livewell, i stripped it down the bare essentials for tuna, and a fallback to rockfish. the fish counts from the previous day at 37.05 and 122.50 suddenly looked dismal. i decided to pick a spot 15 miles north, so i plugged in 37.2030 and 122.45, with the intention of dropping lines in at that spot and continuing to troll out to the 123 line.

we got two scoops of live bait from craig wood at the hmb live bait receiver (thanks, craig!) and plowed our way out of the harbor. once past the reef, out speed was cut down to 10-12 knots because of the swells. i'd forgotten how dark the ocean can be that early in the morning. all of the new electronics, the gps, fishfinder, radar and autopilot, worked flawlessly. our heading was 220 degrees and we were getting beat up pretty bad. at 7am we hit the 122.45 line. the water went from green to blue and we were into 59.5 degree water. i dropped the lines in and sat back. i'm thinking, this is going to be a tough day....



these swells were coming in at 4-8 feet every 8-10 seconds. luckily, there was not much wind on top of it. i could hear the guys at 30.10 and 122.50 and they were hooking up. i decided to give my crew a break and turned south with the swells to rejoin the fleet. at this point my dad is driving (which is the reason i got autopilot....)



and my brother is helping my on deck.



my 19 year old nephew is just sitting there, being a lump.



half way to the fleet, we hook up on single. it was a zucchini flat head jet about 150 feet back. surprisingly, richie brings the fish to the boat, i gaff him and we have one in the box. ed starts chumming, we drop a couple of baits back and wait. nothing happens. looks like we lost the school. richie just stands there, looking goofy. i pull the hook out and tell him to grab his first ever albacore for a photo....



he says, "um, uncle alan, i don't feel so good. i think i'm gonna puke!" i actually had time to filet the fish before he backed away from the rail. being the kind uncle that i am, i did not make him eat the heart of his first albacore. i just cut a piece of meat from the bone and handed it over. he actually choked down a small bite, then ran back to the rail and puked some more.

i know what you're all thinking, but i am not totally heartless. but i had to ask. "hey rich, how much sleep did you get last night?" "um, 4 hours." "how about the night before?" "um, 2 hours." "why so little? you knew we were going fishing?" you get the idea. i gave him two dramamine to knock him out. and it worked....



so it was now 10am and i'm looking at a full bait tank and one albacore. no one was hooking up, so we decided to go for rockfish. we ran to pescadero and stuck four limits of blacks, blues, olives and vermillions, plus two bonus ling cods. we were back at the harbor at 5pm, went straight home and had the boat cleaned by 10pm. so ended the first albacore run of the season.