I guess that I was pretty lucky this weekend. Originally, I had planned to fish tuna on Sunday based on the weather forecast. I pulled in to town on Friday afternoon and talked to a couple guys who had been out who reported calm seas and good fishing. Decided to change plans and fish Saturday and Sunday. This being our third tuna trip, we decided to go ahead and try the live bait fishing. None of the three of us on board had ever fished that way but had some idea of how to do it based on talking with others and reading posts on iFish.
Anyway, we had the expected smooth seas and were able to cruise out to Gray's canyon at a good clip. For the first few troll fish caught in the morning, we tried chumming with some bait and had no results. All of the troll fish we got were just singles and after a while we kind of gave up on the bait fishing idea. At about 1:30, we had 8 fish in the box and I saw a tuna boil just ahead of the boat. I told Dan that we were about to get one and sure enough, zzzzzzzzzzz. This time I knew we were on top of a school so we tossed in some chum and I threw a swim bait in. ZZZZZZZZZZZ. We switched over to bait fishing as soon as we could and for the next couple of hours, we were able to keep the school with us. The only time that we didn't have three fish hanging was while landing and rebaiting. What a blast. I had one take my bait within one second of tossing it in the water. I had another time when I got to see 5 tuna compete for my bait within 10 feet of the boat.
At about 3:15, my dad had the presence of mind to say that we better get going if we want to get back to the fuel dock before they close at 5. We played the last fish and got underway at about 3:30. Unfortunately the north wind had come up a bit and was producing a steady chop and white caps that made the ride home considerably rougher than the ride out. We managed to push through the waves and got to the fuel dock at 4:58. Fortunately, there was another boat fueling up. Otherwise, I suspect that they would have already been shut down for the day as the attendant was eager to get out of there.
There was another person that we were planning to take out on Sunday, but when he saw what we looked like after a day of tuna fishing, he decided that he didn't have the proper attire and didn't want to sacrifice the clothes that he had brought along (pretty lame huh?). We were tired and had caught plenty so we decided not to go out again on Sunday. Since the seas got a lot rougher, it turned out to our advantage and we'll burn our gas another day...
Kurt