Oops!! Somehow missed posting this!!
04 December 2007
Maiden Voyage
Rigging my new boat has truly been a very rewarding as well as informative process. Almost EVERY person to climb aboard would offer his/her unsolicted advice, with nobody seeming able to agree on ANYTHING!!
After launching her, the first thing my fishing mates did was poke fun at the fact that i didn't have a echo-sounder/fishfinder mounted!! One of my buddies graciously offered to borrow me his old furuno Fcv668 echo-sounder, which i declined......... Wanted to show those guys that i can fish with-out a fishfinder and plotter!!
Sooo, ended up taking only a handheld GPS and off we went. The guys i sold my old boat to wanted me to show them how to catch tuna and i was quite happy to oblige. With a crew of 8, and only 3 being experienced tuna anglers, we left harbour.
A bit lumpy inside the bay, but flattened out beautifully in the deep, as predicted. Starting chunking when we got to the deep, with no idea of water temperature or even whether there were fish under the boat. Ten minutes later i see the longfin (albacore) in the chum line!! We catch a half dozen or so of these little buggers, sort of 20-25lb (8-12kg) class fish and then started using whole sardines to see if the YF weren't under the albacore. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ..................YEELLLLLOOOO OW-FINNNNNN ON!!! 2 rods bent over double and now the fun begins!!
Firstly, i some-one borrowed my knives to a buddy and he promised that he'd put them back on the boat. Needless to say, he didn't and i didn't check either!!! So, i managed to find a couple of old, rather blunt knives in my tackle box. The sharpest thing we had was the knife on my leatherman!! Then, i hadn't taken into acount that the new boat is considerabily higher out of the water, making my 3' (1m) gaff's rather in-effective!!
With all the drama and much shouting and profuse sweating on my new crew's part, we ended up doing not so bad. Final tally was 18 Yellowfin, with the smallest being 60kg's (130lb+) and 4 being 85kg class (200lb's) fish with a couple of albacore thrown in for good measure.
Surely a sign of good things to come!!