fisherman in distress
| Phil | mandeville, LA USA |
| Started out Friday making plans with my good friends Dave Kornahrens and Jon Alles to do my first overnighter. With the new moon and, therefore, a possible lack of night time feeding activity, we thought our best shot was a trip to the Main Pass rigs for trout and pompano. That was before I happened to read a post Friday morning in the forum that indicated the nighttime tuna bite was on at MARS. Knowing Jon’s penchant for offshore fishing, Dave and I knew that a phone call was all it would take to get Jon on the program. Jon, quickly switched out the Trout rods for Tuna sticks and headed out towing the Ocean 22 (Dave’s 22’ Hydrasport) to pick up Dave and I at the office for a 2pm departure for Venice. Now as Mars is approximately 57 miles from South Pass, our plan was to run to Port Eads, top off the fuel tank (85 gallons total) and make the run. Launched at Venice Marina at 5pm and started down river. Wind seemed to be blowing pretty good from the West, but we decided to make the run to the pass and check it out. Back up plan was to execute the original Main Pass rig trip, if it appeared too rough to get offshore. At Port Eads we filed a float plan and headed out. The Sunset was unbelievably beautiful and once we got 10 miles out, the seas lay down and we made excellent time. As we approached MARS, darkness had already fallen and we were treated to an amazing sight. MARS itself is quite beautiful when it’s all lit up, however, the sight I am talking about is the CONSTANT BLOW UPS WE WERE SEEING ALL AROUND THE PLATFORM AS MONSTER YELLOWFIN MAURAUDED AROUND DESTROYING THE LEGIONS OF FLYING FISH. We immediately decided to rig a popper on a Shimano 6500 with 80lb power pro and began casting to the blow-ups. On the second or third cast, Jon was on only to break off. My turn up, same thing occurs, immediate hook-up followed by immediate break off. Finally stripped about 50’ of line off the reel. Went to tie on another popper and……what’s this, SOMEONE FORGOT their Yozuri Poppers! Not to be denied, I immediately went to my tackle box and pulled out my Creek Chub “knucklehead” top water trout lure. Dave throws it to another blow up and is immediately hooked-up. 15 minutes later a beautiful 65lb yellow fin tuna hits the deck. We boated a couple black fins before the action slowed some (we probably had 20-30 “near misses” where the tuna came out of the water to hit the bait, only to miss it). We had to maintain about 1200 rpm with the boat in gear just to maintain our position on the rig. Tying up was not an option as the current was swirling and would pull you back into the legs. So, to conserve gas we decided to drift for a while and try our hand a Mr Swordfish. The water was so clear and calm that we could actually see the glow stick over 100’ down. No luck with the broadbill, but did hear a couple captains report seeing a 50’ Humpback whale in the area. Now being in a 22’ boat 57 miles offshore in the middle of the night with no moon (it had set) and a 50’ humpback “out there” somewhere did not make for a good nap, so after we had drifted about ½ way to URSA, we made the decision to run over there and see what was up. Now 4am, and the action is picking back up. 1st drift by URSA and Jon picks up a nice 60lb Yellowfin on a diamond jig. I was able to boat another YF on the knucklehead and a BF. Our tally for the night was 3 YF and 3 BF. Decided to do a little trolling as the sun rose. Made a few passes with nothing so picked up the baits and decided to call it a day. On the run back in we hit a pretty well defined weed line about 4 miles North of Lena and with baitfish in the water, couldn’t resist on more pull on the baits. Had an immediate knockdown that went right through the 90 piano wire. Knew then that with the gas situation and the great trip, it was time to head in and call it a day. Get about 4 miles from South Pass and engine quits. GAS IS GONE, batteries are dead (brand new batteries from the previous week!) That left us with Tuna on the quickly melting ice, no VHF (no battery) and my cell phone that was just about out of juice. After calling several people (what could they possible be doing on Sat morning) with no response, I was finally able to reach one of our wives and quickly relayed approximate coordinates and situation. We were able to “hear” on the VHF but not “transmit”. So, we were jumping for joy when we heard Capt LANCE (who was also returning from MARS) respond that they would be happy to pick us up and tow us back to Port Eads. As we waited for the Strike Zone, the clouds continued to build and we continued to drift, as it was too deep to anchor. After about an hour we were looking like we were in for it as 2 storms were converging right on our location with some unbelievable lightening and rain. Of course, the power issue meant that out bilge was not working either! Just as it began to get a little scary, the Calvary (LANCE ) arrived and towed us back to Port Eads where we were able to re-fuel, get a charge and blast back up the river to home! Many thanks to the dockhand at Port Eads (sorry, didn’t get a name) and LANCE for helping us out of what could have been a potentially dangerous situation. The trip was phenomenal, from the tuna not just crashing but actually jumping out of the water to inhale a flying fish to catching them on a trout lure to the flying fish committing hairy carry into our boat time after time (why didn’t I think to dip those up after they hit the boat for bait I’ll never know, just too much excitement I guess) this was a trip I will remember for a long time. I posted pics of the beautiful sunset on the way out, a night and a morning shot of MARS and URSA, a sunrise shot on the way back in, and, of course, of one of the YF Tuna’s. |
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| Monday, August 4, 2003 @ 11:02:44 AM | |
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