After my very eventful few days with my brother I was paranoid to say the least. I have no idea when this year will start showing some good results but as I look at it "Just another bump in the road". I keep going forward in life and keep going up the hill.

I had a call to deckhand for Mike Jeffcoat of RJ Hunting and Fishing, We headed out to the tuna grounds and when we got to the place there were over 50 boats drifting over a 2 mile square salt dome. I instantly got a very good feeling seeing many boats with at least 1 and up to 3 bent rods at once. The fish were chewing. We set up and started drifting. We struck out on our first drift loosing a few hooks to sharks and kink mackerel. Our second drift was the same. On the third drift we got a bonito. This was getting frustrating to see all the yellowfin and blackfin coming over the side on all the other boats. Mike asked "Ok who brought the bananas?" one of the guys said he had 2 in his bag. We pulled them out and threw them overboard. BANANAS ARE BAD LUCK!!!

After the yellow bad demons drifted out of sight we had our first fish in the box. It was a nice 25 pound class blackfin tuna. Call it a unfounded superstition but I have seen this same situation repeated time and time again. We were now putting a few blackfin in the boat at a pace there was no time for pictures. In between we were still loosing hooks to sharks and kings. Everything was falling in to place. Our first yellowfin was lost after a 8 to 10 minute fight. It is very easy to distinguish between the yellowfin and blackfin run and fight. Our second yellowfin was boated after a good fight that took a rod pass one time. A quick picture and back to the action.


We kept resetting our drift and letting all the action happen. Eventually we had more than enough bonito for bait so all of them were spared the fate of dying on deck or in the ice. All the bonito were given a chance to fight another day. The blackfin were still going on the ice. On one of these drifts we hook another yellowfin. This one is giving us a run for our money. It decided to get up high as many big guys do and gets tangled with the fish another boat is fighting a few hundred yards away. We attempted to get this situation under control but our fish was lost in the mess. Our quest for the desired yellowfin is not going as desired but the box is getting full.



Once again we hook into a very good yellowfin The battle got to the point we had to pull in all our other lines and concentrate on our targeted species. This battle went on for about a half hour when suddenly the all familiar tug and run of a shark hitting an injured tuna happens and the line breaks. That was our third yellowfin of the day and the last one to find our baits. We still ended our day with a respectable box of meat. 1 good yellowfin and over a dozen good size blackfin averaging around 25 pounds with a few close to 30 pounds and 1 king mackrel. Overall a good offshore trip.



Life is Good!