Here is a quick video of the fight, actually it is just the dicey parts right at the end game. Things went pretty smooth through most of the fight even though she was pulling hard and wanted to stay deep. Just like any fishing, the most touch and go part is at the end and we did have a dart pull out of the gill plate which is beyond rare, but the next one stayed put. We planned on swimming her most of the way back figuring she was a bit large to boat but eventually she bled out due to the two dart shots through the gill plate and we gave it a good effort to get her aboard. At one point we had the whole fish out of the water but just couldn't get her thick round body over the gunnel. We drug her as fast as we could into the cold water along the beach and then to the dock. When we cleaned her at the dock the core was actually pretty cool so that made me feel better about not being able to get her aboard.

A big Thanks to Fred Hamilton for helping with the whole process. He was invaluable even though he is a relative newby when it comes to the bluefin game. THANKS AGAIN FRED !!

Another big Thank You to Andrew on the Sea Striker for letting out a location where fish were seen. This is a tough game and a lot of very good fisherman are spending a pile of money to chase these unicorns. It is refreshing when another Captain helps others with the quest. Good Karma for the Sea Striker crew for sure, you guys will be next.

We headed out looking for some fun and groceries. Jigging and bottom fishing gear only, and the trolling gear stayed in the garage. Cruised a nice 25 kts. on the way out with a sizable following sea and made it to our first stop, a wreck in about 160 ft. of water and sent the jigs down. A few fish hooked before everybody got their rods ready, however the cudas knocked them in half at the boat. I figured we wouldn't be able to get anything past the 5 ft. cudas hanging under the boat so we pushed off to some live bottom areas on the break.

We worked our way up the break in roughly 70 degree water and had steady action with AJ's, almacos, albies, and assorted other jacks. I marked the blackfin on many occasions but the aj's were quicker to the jigs, and soon had the crew wanting to pull on something else.

Decided to break the anchor out and go after some jumbo deepwater triggers. I figured it was gonna be a bloodbath, however we only managed a few for the brine tank. The ones we got were big, but it wasn't what I was wanting. Put the anchor away and went on the drift to see if we could pick up the scattered triggers and found a good bite of creole fish, and very big sand tiles and short drifted a very small area and managed to put a good number of tasty beautiful creoles in the tank.

Sometimes the best laid plans don't quite work out. However, we may have fell a bit short in the jumbo trigger department, but we made up for it in the ball busting laugh all day department and enjoyed a nice quick ride back in nice seas. A big piles of creoles, a fish not many people have had the pleasure of eating, was just a bit of icing on the cake.

Thanks to the crew, I enjoyed the day thoroughly.

The fishing will run strong through the winter. Soon enough we will be rocking some killer jigging and popping rods from Spinal and some awesome terminal tackle from Guides Secret. Come on down, bend a rod, and see if you can handle the amberjack pain train !!