With the very bright moon and flat calm ocean, we decided to leave the dock yesterday morning at 1:45 AM. Our destination was 43 miles offshore on the 270 line in 30 fathoms. The reports from Saturday were good, it looked like all of this Northeast wind finally paid off as we had hoped it would. Top boat on Saturday had 12 yellowfins.

Our SST shot early that morning showed a nice break right there. It looked to be about a degree and a half.

Our ride out was beautiful. With all of the light from above, the visability was incredible. We made 17 kts and arrived just outside the "Hot Dog" around 4:25 AM. " I love being the first one there, it's almost magical with all of the anticipation of what the day will bring".

The guys on Saturday said it was crazy, tons of bait, hundreds of birds, whales, stringrays and lots of fish. In order to catch the yellowfins, they said you had to get in and battle it out with the false albacores. Some of the boats reported having 40, 50 and 60+ bites. It's the same thing every Fall, great fishing in close.

As soon as we shut down, the screen lit up with bait. You could smell it in the air, something was going on. I have always liked trolling in the dark. Never caught anything, but it is still very cool. With the moon so bright, I really thought we were going to git bit. I put out 2 spreader bars and 4 daisy chains. No luck......

As it started to get light, we added 4 more rods to the spread mixing in some ballyhoo. I knew we were about to get hammered, it just looked to damn good not to. Slicks were popping up everywhere and the birds, well there wasn't hundreds like the reports said, there were thousands. I have never seen so many chick birds in all of my years doing this. It was an awesome site and it stayed like this all day.

5:50 AM, our first encounter. 9 out of 10 rods go down. The fire drill was on and lasted about 15 minutes, all albacore. Did I forget to mention that there was only 4 of us on the boat and one of them had never been offshore before. Once we got the yard sale cleaned up, we decided to drop down to 7 rods and try that, but that only lasted one go around. So for the rest of the day, we stayed with the 5 rod plan and it worked well.

We caught 23 albacore before we caught our first yellowfin, 9:50 AM. What was wierd and I had never seen before was all of the stingrays that were right in on the bait also, acres of them. I got the yellowfin bite right in the rays. At the time, I really didn't put it together, but that ended up being the trick.

The next 8 fish were all albacores, then 2 yellowfins in a row that we pulled off at the back of the boat. As you can imagine, we were a little upset about that. As we were setting our stuff back out, I noticed an area in the water about 200 yards ahead that was discolored and went towards it. The sun was getting higher in the sky now, making it easier to see down in the water. Before I could say stingrays, "fish on" came from the cockpit and yes it was another yellowfin, 10:15 AM. Now I knew, stay with the stingrays, catch yellowfin.

Over the next 2 hours, we caught 7 more yellowfin and lost count on the albacores after 50+. The 3 of them were getting tired of cranking and we decided to call it a day around 12:30 PM and head for the barn.

What a day!! We backed into the slip at 2:45 PM. For me, I had been up for 38 hours. Thank GOD for "Red Bull", all 8 of them.......

Capt. Tony

nice Job Tony, the pics on your website are awesome as well!

Nice going Tony...congrats!!

Nice report!

Great job, and report Tony! Glad to see you got Mike out for some pullage and a good trip. Have y'all decided to come south for stripers this fall or are you staying up north this year? After the first 'Frostbite', I don't see how you could skip a year now. Tight lines-

Nice job on the TUNAS!!! Got to love those albies.....NOT.......

There goes Capt. Tony doing it again. You are having an awesome year congrats and keep it up.

VooDoo

Hey Mark,
Please come up and join us sometime....
Tony

Capt. T,

"Great Job" as always.

On Course

Great job Capt. Tony! We were there too. The Press Time called us over. I heard you guys on the radio, as well. It was awesome to have 7 of 8 rods go off at once! Those cownose rays were cool, too. From the bridge, when they were down deeper they looked like a sandbar. We had some live spot and dropped them into the school and fought a few on light tackle. It was my favorite trip of the year so far.

Great report Captain Tony. What did your water temps look like ?

Thanks everyone! Hopefully we will get a day or two in soon. I'm thinking Saturday & Monday right now. We are going everyday the conditions allow. If anyone wants to join us, please fire me an email at bigbluefins@comcast.net so I have your email. The days we are going, I will try and fire out an email a day or two in advance.

kdfarmer: yes we are coming back to the "2nd Annual Frostbite Challenge" wouldn't miss the chance to get schooled again by the locals. It really was a "GREAT" time.

rockstar: glad Luke called you guys in on Sunday, it really was a pretty place. i really enjoyed the "combat fishing" near the end when 20+ boats were trying to get on the same bait ball. kind of reminded me of being off Cape Henry in December that one Sunday with 400+ boats.

bobdu11: the average temperature was around 76.3, but we did find one break along the edge that was 75.8-77.1. Blue-green to blue in color.

Hopefully these fish will give you guys the same shot in a week or two.

Tight lines....

Capt. Tony

that got my blood pumping

Tony

Would love to give me a call and we can try to set something up. Might have to take a road trip for a research and development session.

VooDoo