So I wanted to book this trip for the longest time. Had my name on the wait list and bingo someone could not make the trip so I was lucky to get a spot. A big thanks to the couple from Germany that could not make it.... I got 1 of the 2 spots and another guy gobbled the other spot up. Everyone meets at the dock hours before,,, it's just what we do as anglers. We hurry up and wait. I drive up and have the red shirts unload my truck. I was doing back to back trips so the next trip my stuff was at the hotel marked trip #2. I told the red shirts if you see any marked tags.. trip #2 set them a side... Like a good angler I was spinning the night before checking everything twice. I had everything in good order and the red shirts loaded me up in a cart and I walked upstairs to check in with Judy the office manager. I told her before I have a few boxes of diapers for a crew member and she had the green light and told me where to put the 3 big boxes. When I came down all my stuff was in a cart and in line. I tipped the red shirts a few 20's and drove back to the hotel and loaded all my stuff for trip #2 and parked my truck and took the short walk back to the docks ready to mingle and meet some new people that I have never fished with and to say hi to the guys I have shared the rail before. Shon and his crew of guys were there and I met them and was buzzing down the docks for a bit of breakfast having the people in line keep a good eye on my stuff. Ok it's time to board the Indy... first off what a boat... big-wide and handles the weather very good. I like to board last and let everyone get there gear onboard and what ever is left I get. Never a problem because 90% of my rods and tackle I keep on the upper deck. It's time to toss the ropes and head to get the bait will need on this 10 day. Captain Matt is looking and filling the next half full so the bait we get are in great shape when will use them. After about an hour maybe a little more the Captain points the Indy south and it'd time for the safety seminar and then Danny's doing the swag where everyone got some great stuff and then it's the raffle time. Danny had some great reels and rods and the winners were so excited. Danny put on a great trip and everyone was just waiting to get there lines wet. We head to the ridge and it was game on. All the Tuna you wanted... I was catching some smaller grade tuna and tossing them back to grow for another time. We we trolling for wahoo and to my surprise the skins we few and far and for a 10 day November trip that's not the case. We dealt with it and a few onboard got a wahoo. Then a few days latter the dorado show up big time. few day before we has the the dorado on us but they were peanut size so the captain said toss them back and wait for the better grade and he was right... the dorado were much larger models eating everything in sight. A BIG WARNNING DON"T TOSS JIGS AT THE DORADO! It is dangerous and when they shake there heads jigs start flying and some did not listen and a few jigs were in the hands of some people and it's not fun. Stick with bait and I caught a few on dead baits sitting on the deck... We did go to the upper end of the lower banks but not much action so we kinda hung out on the ridge fishing different areas and getting lots of limited style fishing. I want to thank the captain and crew and Danny for putting this trip together everyone onboard were happy and getting along. So here what worked.... 1/0 or a 2/0 hook.. some were using fluro but I did not and got bit just fine. The very few wahoo we caught most were on the troll and a couple on a jig and bait. At times I was using like a size 1 hook and it worked just fine but the 1/0 seemed to be a better hook set.... if you lost a tuna you had no problem getting you another one within seconds at times in the trip... tuna we in the 20-45 LB range. What didn't work... Jigs on dorado use bait it is much safer. o and one last thing... we did get into some nice yellowtail and the 6X junior and heavy worked as well as the dropper lupe going 60-80 pound with a 12-16 sinker... big bait... yes we fished for bait and loaded up on the big green backs and the small red hooks with 4 hooks were loaded every drop... if you have the 6 hook set up cut 2 hooks of.
