Stoked ( BFT trip booked )

Mic drop.

My first overnight tuna trip. 

Don't care if it's the wrong time,boat, fishing grounds, going to enjoy the heck out of this trip.

Thanks to ex-kayaker for all the tips and recommendations .

Lure/iron recommendation, donations accepted. 

Stocking up on Red bulls now and just go into a coma wed night when I get back.

Good lucks Alex.

Good lucks Alex.

Thanks Sonny. A couple spots left. 

Pace yourself, 3 days is a lot of time and the fortune is a great boat.
Was on a 2.5 day at the end of october on spirit of adventure. We fished south of san clemente around the 381.

30-40lb flyline, 60,80 lb sinker produced a lot of fish. Think i hooked up 8 times on 30, once on 40, 90% i was fishing 30 and small #1 mustad oshaugnessy j hook to get a bite from the 40-60 lb bft/yft with some jumbos mixed in. Back or butt hook. if you can get the bait to swim straight down, you will get bit more.

They ignored colt snipers and jigs during the day.
Try a small flatfall if conditions allow it during the evening before dark.

The schools aren’t sticking to the boat as well this time of year at night so it might be short windows and heavy knife jigs (up to 500g) to get down quickly. If they are sticking around, lightest you can get away with without scoping out too much usually 200-250g knife jigs.

Good luck

Thanks for that info Senko.

I hear ya on the pacing.

Alex

Go gettem Alex
Lmk if you need to borrow gear

Go gettem Alex
Lmk if you need to borrow gear

 

Thanks Johnny.

Hi Alex. I did a three day trip on the Islander the end of September. We left Thursday morning at 11am and had 3 day bluefin boat limits (144) by Saturday morning. The bluefin were on the northwest corner of Catalina island then.

This was my 5th trip of 2.5+ days and by far the best numbers wise. I ended up catching 13 bluefin (15-97lbs), one yellowfin (37lbs), and two yellowtail. The night knife jig bite was best (11 of my bluefin were at night with several missed bites/fish pulling off too).

For the night bite I had two rail rods rigged up. Both with 130lb braid and 250lb leader. One was a 400gram rip roller and the other was a 560gram knife jig. I got bit equally on both. Color doesn’t seem to matter.

My daytime rod had 65lb braid to 40lb fluorocarbon leader (1/0 ringed circle hook-bait was sardines). I got two bluefin (15lber & 40lber), a 37lb yellowfin, and two yellowtail on bait during the day. I threw a colt sniper during the day too with zero love.

The best advice I would give is mark your line every 100 feet. Mine is marked down to 400 feet. Having your bait in the strike zone is by far the most important (the captain will call out the depths the fish are at) thing imho. Also, pay close attention to any deviation when your jig is falling. Any pause I’d immediately put my reel in gear asap and start cranking as fast as I could. These bluefin will eat that jig and spit it back out in a couple seconds. They pretty much hook themselves as long as you keep tension on the line and don’t give them any slack.

Another recommendation I’d give you is pack some type of hydration products (pedialyte sport or other hydration additive). My first trip I got horrible cramps in my legs after fishing hard all day/night and my muscles not being used to the rocking of the boat.

Make fish processing reservations asap if you haven’t done so already. I’ve used 5 star and been pretty satisfied. I’d rather pay someone else to do it after getting back to the dock exhausted from fishing hard but that’s just me.

Good luck on your first trip. You will have a blast. I look forward to hearing about your trip when you return. If you have any other questions please let me know.

Awesome advice BDP. T.Y..

I was just thinking about how I was going to mark my line.

Nice catches.

Curious if you seen anyone spooled ?

Alex

This is interesting

Great advice back deck pro.  I will add: Let go of any expectations, and, Remember you're done yet.

Deckhands will help you mark your lines as you're setting up.

Bushy

This looks acceptable ?

This looks acceptable ?

.....looks like a pita 

This looks acceptable ?

 





.....looks like a pita