My buddy with a 38' Pursuit put together a boys trip to try our luck at Cortez/Tanner. The four of us left at 830pm on Wednesday night, grabbed two scoops of decent bait, and pointed it straight for the SE edge of Cortez. We get to the zone at grey light on Thursday morning, and put out the Madmacs to start covering some ground. No sign of Bluefin at Cortez after about 2 hours, so we pull in the trollers and head up to the SE edge of Tanner. We put out the Madmacs again, and start trolling along the southern edge of the drop off at Tanner, heading west. The sidescan starts doing its "CLACK CLACK CLACK", and right as the up-and-down starts to light up with meter marks, one of the trollers goes off. After about 45 minutes, we get the fish in the boat, and it's a nice one. We estimated between 150-200lbs (it ended up weighing 193lbs at the processor). We continue to work that zone through the day, and it was pretty much non-stop action. We boat 4 more Bluefin (with one of the troll stops being a double!) in the 100-140lb range, until a gnarly fog bank rolls in around 4pm, which forced us to head in and leave 'em biting. Absolutely insane day out there, and the volume of fish we saw was pretty impressive. The season is NOT over!
We were trolling right between 13-14 knots, with both Madmacs way the fuck back there. If you think you're out far enough, go even further. The 240s in Black Pink Mackerel and Pink Mackerel were the hot colors, rigged with 5/0 Owner 5X trebles on the front and back. We heard radio traffic from guys flying the kite in the same zone that were not having any luck, so it definitely seemed like trolling was the call.
We were trolling right between 13-14 knots, with both Madmacs way the fuck back there. If you think you're out far enough, go even further. The 240s in Black Pink Mackerel and Pink Mackerel were the hot colors, rigged with 5/0 Owner 5X trebles on the front and back. We heard radio traffic from guys flying the kite in the same zone that were not having any luck, so it definitely seemed like trolling was the call.
