# PELAGIC PIRATE Rig Trip 5-8 to 5-10



## PELAGIC PIRATE (Oct 10, 2007)

Headed out Wed night into calm seas at about 10 pm : first stop would be Petronius which we got to 1 hour before day break. Got on tuna right away , but the sharks were really thick and took all or most of any fish we hooked. Decided at this point that maybe the closer rigs were all sharked up and so we took off trolling to horn mountain. Not one open water bite : nothing but blue water and no bait or fish.

Get to horn mountain and make a few laps , no bites and we decided to chunk , jig ,pop to no avail as nobody was home. Marked fish at 400-600ft but they just would come up and the current made it hard together a jig to them. We decide to troll off to the drill ship south of horn without a single open water bite the whole way. We get the the drilling platform and start trolling and pick up our first wahoo of about 20 pounds. We troll some more and get nada so we decide to try everything possible to catch a fish and all we come up with was a blackfin or two. So at this point we think we should try to make some live bait off the driller and bust out the bait rigs. We manage 5 nice baits when a guy the rig starts screaming for us to get away : we're too close( even though 2 other boats were doing the same exact thing : but with 5 nice blue runners we figure we might convert into big tuna. 

We troll off to Nakika and do not get a single open water bite the whole way, and arrive to no there boats but a bunch of crew boats on shift change . We trolled a bunch of laps for nada. We then stop the boat and try flying the kite with a live bait. We get the kite up with a perfect bait and soaked it till dark without a single bite. So we pull in the kite and try jigging , chunking and popping and catch pretty much nothing but a few small blackfin. We fished hard till 1 or so am when I slow rolled it back to the drill ship. Once there I start jigging and the blackfin are thick so everyone starts catching them since nothing else was biting.we caught a stack of them no tried chunking for a few hours , with nothing to show. Fished till we couldn't stand up anymore and went to bed with two sword baits out the rest of the night. 

We wake up at day break with not a single bite on the sword lines and had drifted 5 miles. We pick up trolling toward horn mountain again with no bites till we get to the rig. Second lap we score a wahoo that was a twin of the first we caught the day before. We tried trolling for a few hours and no more bites . We then deploy the live baits .. We get bite right away , but the fish came off. About 5 min later we hook another fish this time it's on . Reggie was on the rod and the fish was acting like a marlin staying up . The fish was then coming to jump and all the sudden , line breaks. We reel it in and see we got bit off by a shark or a cuda, either way we are just pisssed it couldn't be a tuna.

We troll off toward home stopping at Marlin just long enough to see nothing going on, and next stop was a rig in 350 ft. Here we hook up two huge fish right on the bottom with jigs only to loose Both on the rig. We finally catch. Few AJ and all the sudden the sky got dark , the wind picked up and the seas we flat and then turned the opposite way it had been running and pitched up to 8 ft easy with crazy with over 30kts. I swear it was like the scene from Forrest Gump in the shrimp boat during the hurricane. I actually got worried for real because it was just that bad. 

I pointed her home and started out at 4 knots and after a mile or so was able to get 9 in this crap but we were taking green water over the tower and getting pushed all over the place so much the auto pilot was getting a workout. The storm finally got off of us at 40 miles from port allowing us to run 20 knots till we got 10 miles off the pass where we ran out of fuel on tank two: holy crap :

I switch tanks and prime us and get her started but no we are wondering if we will make it because we had run tank 1 one the first half of the trip. Anyway we clear the pass which was stacked with huge waves at 4 pm Friday . We get San Roc which is the closest fuel dock and put 70 gallons in the tank that ran out ( which is strange because we told our boat held 100 in each tank so we figured we had 180 usable: looks like we have 180 gallons with 140 usable).tank two took 69 gallons and that's as close as it gets. We covered 300 kn miles on our 3 day trip and burned 139 gallons . For all that ground and all those rigs we just didn't do very well but that's why they call it fishing and not catching:thumbsup:

Best of all we finally figured out our range after 4 years of owning this boat


Pic to follow


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## Illinijeff (Mar 28, 2011)

Awesome report!


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## matttheboatman (Aug 25, 2008)

Pirate,

That is not your usual success story but does show how you are willing to put in the effort to do what it takes to be successful. Kudos for giving it your all. 

I must say all the blue water had me thinking it would be better fishing. 

Perhaps next trip.

Matt


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## reel sorry (Aug 7, 2011)

Thanks for the real time report. The charts have shown plenty of good blue water lately but no real breaks/rips anywhere in range. Your report confirms it. Fishing the OB Billfish next week. We need all the help we can get.:thumbsup:


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## PELAGIC PIRATE (Oct 10, 2007)

I'm sure it will be wide open next week be because I can't go 

Good luck :thumbsup:



reel sorry said:


> Thanks for the real time report. The charts have shown plenty of good blue water lately but no real breaks/rips anywhere in range. Your report confirms it. Fishing the OB Billfish next week. We need all the help we can get.:thumbsup:


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## PELAGIC PIRATE (Oct 10, 2007)

matttheboatman said:


> Pirate,
> 
> That is not your usual success story but does show how you are willing to put in the effort to do what it takes to be successful. Kudos for giving it your all.
> 
> ...



You know sometime you just can't win , but my favorite part of fishing offshore is just being out there on a adventure : 


So I cannot complain getting 3 days offshore and 3 days away from work:thumbsup:


I will say I have never seen so much pretty water with nothing in it but scattered weeds and sharks .....I'm sure things will pick up here soon because I have to take a week off from fishing .


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## pilotkal (May 31, 2012)

great report what engines are you running on your boat,,,,Ive offen wondered how far I could go just never got up to try past fifty. way to many variables with seas and all going to try it though.


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## sniperpeeps (Mar 5, 2011)

Good report, that's the way it goes sometimes. I was to your East around the Nipple yesterday when that wind kicked up, it got sure enough nasty out there. I couldn't run my autopilot had to be on the throttle and wheel the whole way back.


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## Fish Eye (Apr 4, 2013)

Nice report sorry it did work out for you.


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## Chris V (Oct 18, 2007)

Great report Mike and very thorough work there. Didn't hear any good tuna reports from anyone else either


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## PELAGIC PIRATE (Oct 10, 2007)

pilotkal said:


> great report what engines are you running on your boat,,,,Ive offen wondered how far I could go just never got up to try past fifty. way to many variables with seas and all going to try it though.




We run a 34 ft express with a single Yanmar 315hp diesel

We get 2.3 mpg at 18 knots , but when we high speed troll 9-12 knots we get 
3.3 to 4 mpg. At idle or under 4 knots she burns .3 gph.

This trip with trolling was around 300 km : and our fuel bill was 590$ at marina prices.......makes me wonder what the triple 350's go fast boats ring up getting out where we were.

We had never run this far before out of our old port and thinking we had more fuel caused use to really stretch out there: we got very lucky:thumbsup:

We do have the ability to take extra fuel , which we will do our next trip out.

We regularly service our engine and once she starts we never turn her off so on this trip she ran for 3 straight days.


We love the fuel Economy in our boat but my partner and I have decided to list her and go big : AC foremost : shower : galley : more beds.

She is going to be listed at sportsmans and is fish ready for anyone wanting one bad Daddy fishing rig......


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## recess (Oct 8, 2007)

AWesome report !!!! but like you said the adventure is what it is all about.


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## SnapperSlapper (Feb 13, 2009)

I often wonder why tuna are so difficult. If i knew the answer i would catch more. Seems like too much blue water is even worse than not enough. I can't remember many good tuna trips when blue water is in really close and everywhere, except on the rare occasion I've been southwest of na kika. My personal opinion, and I'm probably wrong, is that they get too spread out.


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## SnapperSlapper (Feb 13, 2009)

By the way, I owe you a trip or two if you want to go snapper slumming some time.


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## macala (Oct 4, 2007)

Every time I think my efforts are good, you prove that I'm soft. If people think you ever get lucky, I say bullship. Its just hard work. You guys inspire me to fish harder! Glad you got in safe. We should get together for a drink one day since we live 10 minutes from each other.

Jeff


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## Realtor (Oct 1, 2007)

Holy Cow, after reading that I felt like I was right there with ya! Thanks for the report.


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## Frenchy (Oct 2, 2007)

Excellent report Pirate, thank you, my hat to you and crew for perseverance, impressed as well by the combination of weapons used, well done.
Wondering id currents in that area were too strong(hilton) to be productive?
About to run a similar trip which will be the furthest I would have been, in my boat and to fish anyway, so I really enjoyed your report, thank again.


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## PELAGIC PIRATE (Oct 10, 2007)

SnapperSlapper said:


> By the way, I owe you a trip or two if you want to go snapper slumming some time.



Sounds like fun : where are you these days

Call me or contact me through the board :thumbsup:


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## PELAGIC PIRATE (Oct 10, 2007)

macala said:


> Every time I think my efforts are good, you prove that I'm soft. If people think you ever get lucky, I say bullship. Its just hard work. You guys inspire me to fish harder! Glad you got in safe. We should get together for a drink one day since we live 10 minutes from each other.
> 
> Jeff


Thx for the comments Jeff


Don't kid yourself : you get it done time and time again when you go, I always expect a great report.


Sounds like a plan : ill contact you this week and set something up to get together :thumbsup:


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## PELAGIC PIRATE (Oct 10, 2007)

Frenchy said:


> Excellent report Pirate, thank you, my hat to you and crew for perseverance, impressed as well by the combination of weapons used, well done.
> Wondering id currents in that area were too strong(hilton) to be productive?
> About to run a similar trip which will be the furthest I would have been, in my boat and to fish anyway, so I really enjoyed your report, thank again.


Thx for the response

Just not sure , this was our first rig trip in a few years .

I used to get out there more often , and to tell you the truth the best I've done out there has been at night ( although I have had a few day light bites, the night is what I live for)


You just don't know till you go check and nobody had been for quite some time.

Water temp was good and the water was blue as can be, maybe lack of bait , weather pressure , current ?


The wind was opposite current the whole trip but I've caught fish in all these conditions . I'm sure they are out there and I am sure they will bite soon as its that time of year to fish :thumbsup:


Good luck out there and be safe:thumbsup:


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## MSViking (Oct 11, 2007)

Mike I was exhausted by just reading your report!! It takes a true fisherman to put in the time and effort you did! Sometimes it just does not work out, but as you allude to, if you do not enjoy the prep and effort then it's not your sport. Good job on the effort!

Thanks for sharing all the details as it is helpful to all of us that follow this forum. Looks like I will be high speed wahoo fishing next weekend in the canyon if I can get down!

Robert


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## Fiver (Nov 6, 2008)

Thanks for the report. Some trips you definitely have to scrape, and some days things come easier. Great job getting a couple of wahoo in the box.


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## JACKIN' JAWS (Mar 14, 2008)

You'll get 'em next time. Sounds like you guys worked your butts off. I think the bite was off last week in some areas. Great report anyway.


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## PELAGIC PIRATE (Oct 10, 2007)

MSViking said:


> Mike I was exhausted by just reading your report!! It takes a true fisherman to put in the time and effort you did! Sometimes it just does not work out, but as you allude to, if you do not enjoy the prep and effort then it's not your sport. Good job on the effort!
> 
> Thanks for sharing all the details as it is helpful to all of us that follow this forum. Looks like I will be high speed wahoo fishing next weekend in the canyon if I can get down!
> 
> Robert



Thx for the comments Robert 


The part I left out , which some may know is : we drove in 6 hrs from Atlanta on Wednesday , loaded and took off, came back Friday and cleaned up and left sportsmanship at 8 eastern getting home at 2 am for mother day weekend .


Talk about epic; thank god we have two bunks and 2 bean bags in the boat as we do get our zzzzzz's while trolling and drifting .


We will be back maybe sooner than later if the weather is good to try it all again .

WHY some may ask?


We Love Our Sport:thumbsup:


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