lightning strikes twice

[cold waters]

I will be honest I am still pretty much putty from the last couple of trips but what the hell I will see what I can bang out on the keys here.

So after taking Saturday off we went back down south on Sunday. The boat was a full one. we waited for the last member of the group to show till 5 am and they just didn't arrive so we left the dock and headed for the IOS to procure some bait for the day... as advertised we pulled up to Smuttynose and stuffed the tank with over 60 macs in 15 minutes. We dialed up our usual spot on the North side of the wagen and off we went... I get setup in the pit and start tying leaders. 9/0 live bait circles on 10' of 100# flouro, I tie up 6 so we are ready for the start of the day... then here came the fog and we had to pull her back to 25 kts with a couple of 10kts stops to pass a stack of boats. As we started to cross Tillies the vis increases to 2 miles or so. I crawled up into the tower for the rest of the trip... we hit the bank with little to no fan fare, so we banged a left and kept running... I wasn't seeing a damn thing... then as the vis was getting better and we were getting farther down the life started to pick up a little bit more... I saw a cluster of boats to the East that seemed interesting and then I saw it!!!! white water was flying, a quick rap to the hard top and the engines pull back. I come out of my perch "I saw busting fish, 1 mile at 12:30" we make the slight right and run a bit and glide in. I start dropping out baits and we see a couple of fish up. this doesn't look as good as the other day, but promising!! Within 10 Mins the balloons start to do that Jig again..... left long goes hard right then left and then nothing....the Left short starts bobbing ZING (7:58)..... and we've got one buttoned up.... we clear all the rods out and give the rod to Rick to get to work... after 15 mins of some pretty angling he bows out and I try to get Kristina settled in. The damn gimbal wraps around her TWICE, this is going to prove to be a problem, she is by far the smallest angler we have even thought of putting on one of these fish. Then I get the standup harness on her too...I pull the drag off of strike to lighten the load to 18-20#, she starts to settle in and do a good job... my father is rather nervous that I just clipped my 100# wife to a reel set at 26# at strike and then the rod slips from the Gimbal, we get her back on course and she is doing a bang up job and the rod slips again... at this point I decide that in the best interest of everybody, the fish included, that I ought to put an end to this game myself and wait for a day that we get Kristina set up properly, with the right size harness and gimbal, to fight her first tuna. I set up and in 4 Mins (we know the time frames because of the picture time stamps) I have the fishing swimming along the boat. it was about a 63" fish. We hurry to get the baits back in the water because we have seen some more activity while the 22 minute fight ensued. We also know that at any moment this can and while dry up! we have some more balloons dancing for the next hour but we only come tight on a couple of striper's. so we pick up and start jogging around to see if we can find any better life... we had heard some chatter on the radio of life but there wasn't too much out there... we stopped in an area that was a little better looking not too far off and we send the baits back out... around 11:00 we have a fish crash the balloon and strip off about 75' of line fast and then Nothing, the circle must not have caught on the way out!! the last bite of the day was a little 52" bass! we called it a day at 12:15 and headed for the barn. Unfortunately we found out when we got home that one of our camera team didn't have a chip in their camera. but Kristina got some nice pictures with our camera so all wasn't lost...

I will post up some pictures tonight on my Log Version of the report

[marcus220]

nice goin ed,i hope to get down there fri.

[oddfish]

From where I'm at I can see stellwagon. Unfortunaately, I'm shorelined for a few days.

OD

[cold waters]

well thats no fun

[Scunz]

Originally Posted by oddfish

From where I'm at I can see stellwagon. Unfortunaately, I'm shorelined for a few days.

OD

You hanging around in P-town again????

BTW, I just ordered a case of the new Hevi-metal duck loads tonight.......damn, I'm salivating already.

[cold waters]

pics are up in the log and a little more detail

[Danny]

another awesome post. this one really got my heart pumping.

[Scunz]

Great pics.....that striper was a pig!