The Hunt
Yesterday I headed out with Javier and Americo on Rum Runnin for my latest "Vela Escuela" expedition. Mark Sweetwood had been fishing with Redrum a couple of times this week prior to our trip out on Rum.
With the Dorado and Marlin bite the way it has been Mark wanted to try for something new Over the past 2 days fishing with us he had tired himself out catching over 5 Billfish and up in the higher -teens of Dorado. Mark suggested that today he wanted to try for Tuna. Now the Tuna bite hasn't been strong but Javier is not one to back down from a challenge. Immediately he got on the radio and starting asking other boats if there was any report of Tuna.
We arrived at the fuel dock early and Javier began to mingle with all the other captains waiting for their morning "fill 'er ups". He had gathered information that there was a school of Yellowfin about 15-20 miles straight off The Arch. Now that we had our full tank of diesel we were on our way.
Once we past The Arch we headed directly towards the sunrise, the sun an awesome mixture of yellow, orange, and red with a clear blue sky back ground. It looked like something you would see in a painting. I thought to myself "why am I leaving this"!
Mark and I got to get to know eachother a little bit as we watched Americo get the gear ready for the day. Americo began to change leader out, check line and hooks, make sure knots were tight enough. He began to explain to Mark that the bill of a Marlin can scratch and damage line or leader to a point where it pretty muchs acts like a saw and saws through it. That's why he likes to change out the line every morning.
After getting my "Knot Tying 101" lesson from Americo I headed up top to see what my buddy Javier was up to. I sat next to him on the tower continuing to watch the sunrise making small talk with him about his wife and kids who I have gotten to know over the years. He pointed at his GPS and showed me where we were heading. He explained that we were heading to a spot where the water drops off to about 4,500 ft. and is a big playground for Porpoise. "Maybe 30 minutes" he said. We talked the rest of the way out and Javier was even nice enough to share his morning snack with me. Think tuna fish salad made from Dorado. I think I may have pissed Americo off by eating his half of it!
We finally arrived to our spot and set out our spread. The water was blue, calm, and all looked pretty promising. Some time went by as we trolled and glassed the water looking for porpoise, birds, or sunning Marlin. We spotted a group of 10-15 birds flying up the Pacific, Javier followed them but to no avail. Shortly after we recieved a report that there was a small school of porpoise crashing around about 5 miles towards the shore. The excitement grew while Americo switched out the lures to smaller hoochies and cedar plugs. We understood it was a smaller school and that the Tuna were "hit or miss". We arrived and spotted the school of about 15-20 dolphin. It looked more as if they were playing with eachother rather than slamming on bait. Javier executed a couple of pass throughs but "nada" as he would say. "The Tuna no hungry" Americo explained to Mark.
We strayed from the school of porpoise to follow another flock of birds that seemed to be crashing on a bait ball. Some porpoise were crashing around but still, no Tuna to be found. After a while of not seeing anything at all Americo spotted a large group of birds, not crashing on bait, but just cruising. Sure enough they were trying to catch up to a huge school of porpoise. The school must have been 50-60 large. When 50-60 dolphin are jumping out of the water at different times it looks like there are hundreds and hundreds of them. We slowly trolled through them, making several pass throughs. To our suprise no strikes. Javier yelled at Americo to pitch a live bait and that he was going to run the boat slowly as if we were trolling the bait. I even got in on the action and pitched another "livey" thinking the more bait in the water the better. Nope!
We passed through hundreds of porpoise, changed our lures and gear out all day we even had Americo do a little Tuna Dance for us. The only thing that made us accept our defeat was that none of the other twenty plus boats were catching Tuna either.
Javier was not going to bring Rum Runnin back empty handed, we headed away from the boats, closer towards the show and up towards the Pacific a little bit to see if we could at least land a Dorado. Sure enough, as soon as got up North just a little a nice 30+ pound Bull Dorado struck!
Now at least we didn't have to head home skunked in October!
Next week I will be heading out with Cesar on Tantrum. Let's hope he doesn't throw me off the boat!!
