8/28 Tuna!

Made a run for Tuna the past 2 days with the nice weather, August 26th and 27th. The 26th saw good fishing and I was debating if I even wanted to go again the following day but eventually came to my senses and realized we had to go right back after a good trip on the 26th.

First day out there, we got out there early, before sunrise and pretty quickly got into the fish. We ended up getting 10 fish all Bluefin with one being a nice over, the rest being that average 20-30lb size thats been around. Everything came on Ronz's either 8" 2oz Ronz or 10" 5oz Ronz in Pink or White. We started off in 145' of water and by the end of the morning had moved into 160'. By around 11am the bite had pretty much shut down and we called it a good day.

Day 2, the 27th, right back to the same spot with even calmer water. Sunrise saw good action once again getting several bites and getting 3 smaller 20-30lbers in the boat, again all on Ronz, 10" 5oz. Maybe 45 minutes after sunrise I hooked a much heavier fish and after a 25 minute fight we released an over of unknown size, 60" class. Thankfully I was using my heavier 350gram Rod with 65lb braid on a Saragosa 18k. The fish never made any crazy runs, some decent runs but never far enough out we had to chase it. After that the bite got tough, there were 100 boats in the fleet and with calm sunny conditions it felt like it was over pretty quick. We moved around a bit, found a log with some small Mahi on it, which I caught one pretty quick on a small metal, then a few more on chunks of whiting.

We left the fleet around 10am and went east. We didn't get more than a mile or 2 before finding a big school of Dolphins and a few Whales. We jig n popped around the Dolphins and at one point, they swam right next to the boat, and we were able to see a big school of Tuna right under them! Still, no bite, though one of the few boats in this zone was fighting one. We moved further to the east another few miles to a smaller fleet, maybe a dozen boats. We saw one boat was hooked up, but didn't really mark any fish as we idled around the fleet. We went to the deep side of the fleet, marked one fish, and started fishing. 20-30 minutes later, came tight on an 8" ronz on the 2oz head, with 50lb leader and 30lb braid. Fish popped off under the boat, but a small BFT. We got 2 more bites here in the same 40 minutes, landing 2 more 20-30lb fish, both on 8" Ronz and lighter (40-50lb) leader. This flurry happened around noon-1pm, and after another hour lull we headed in.

Total was 17 Tunas, 2 over and the rest unders in 2 days. Every fish hit a Ronz despite a valiant effort of trying to get them on metals. Fished the Gully both days.