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capt hoop · #1 11-06-2012, 12:38 AM

Yesterday evening at the dock nobody had a trip for today and we decided to do a "FUN" trip today. We knew there were some big yellowfin close by and decided to see if we could get one or two for ourselves. Jerry was to use his boat but he had to cancel late last night so we went on Lee's boat. There was Lee, Eddie,and Myself, as charter boat captains and Lee's deckhand Matt. We left the dock at 6:00 am and went directly to a boat of a friend that we contacted by Sat phone and told us he had big fish under his boat.

Once on scene Lee Was talking to the boat, Eddie was driving Lee"s boat, Matt was tying a hook on and I grabbed some bait, broke it up in my hand and tossed a few chunks in. We instantly had a lot of fish under us feeding and about the 5th piece of chumm in the water we had a big yellowfin run through about 5 - 10 feet under the boat, and another, and another. The "Holy S--t" came out of our mouths almost at the same time.

Eddie gets the first bait in the water and hand tosses it to a yellowfin that devowers it and the fight is on

Lee tosses a bait in and we now have 2 on. Both are over 150 pounds easily. Eddie and Lee both loose the fish but my chumming is bring in more big boys. Matt hooks up a blackfin and gets it in but by this time lee and Eddie have both rerigged and are now pulling the bait away from 120 -150 class tuna and tossing to the 200 plus yellows in the mix. None of us have ever seen this many big boys together ever. The action is hectic and we are hooking, fighting, and loosing fish with tackle breaking off. After loosing 10 or 12 with only 2 blackfin to show for our efforts Eddie hooks up and me being frustrated tell Lee to stop fishing and lets concentrate on landing this fish. I slow down on the chumming and just about stop altogether. Lee and matt pickup thier lines and Lee gets on the wheel to follow this big boy. This worked and we finally have a yellowfin in the boat.

This is not one of the hogs we have been loosing but it is a 150 class fish. Our screen is still litup and I am still holding the school with us.

We finaly figured out the problem. There were very big sharks that were on the outer perimiter and if the tuna did not swallow the bait but got hooked the bait would run up the line and eventually the sharks feeling the stress of the tuna would close in and swim past grabbing the excess baitoff the line and cutting the line. In some cases these 500 pound plus and some guys there guessed the ones they saw at around 800 pounds would just grab the big yellowfin and get a free meal. Once we started chasing the tuna they were allowed to run out of the area the sharks were in and we had a chance to get them in the boat.

By 11:30 am we were out of bait but had 5 yellows and 4 blackfin in the box. We cut up 1 blackfin for bait. We decided to head for the barn and a fish cleaning party well desirved. We counted 19 big tuna hooked up and only 5 landed. There may have been a few others but that is what we deffinatly know we lost. It was hard to figure out the big shark issue we had to put up with.

A 4th blackfin was later found in the box and did not make the picture.

It was still early and the trout are hot this week so we got rid of the carcases and set the boat up for some trout action. We hit the first spot and no trout were to be had. One boat there said the bite was hot but had stopped. Before we left I hooked up and landed this nice flounder. Eddie's wife loves flounder so he took a picture to show her what I caught for her.

We moved to another spot and found a few. The bite was not on fire but the trout were quality size.

This was my first.

We fished for trout untill near dark and put 13 in the box. I cleaned them while the others went to the houseboat, got some cocktails and prepaired supper.

Inshore and offshore beauties all in one day. This had to be one of the greatest most fishing active days in my life. We talked about today and None of us had ever seen that many big yellowfin together in our entire time fishing the gulf waters.

I posted this in the Saltwater section because it covered the entire spectrum from trout to tuna.

Life is Good!
Fishing is not a matter of life or death. It's more important than that.

CAPT HOOP -- OUR FREEDOM