Good times on the Pacific Queen. Booked this trip in May, I think. Crazy you have to book that far out but when you’re good, you’re good! Great boat, great crew, great captain.
When we boarded John looked at my gear & convincingly sent me back to the tackle shop to rent a 80# rig. My buddy had 3 2 speed setups that he was on the fence about letting me use. I get it no worries. My largest rig was 60# but John said that won’t work.
Everything was pretty great. A group of joke-cracking knuckleheads on the boat kept everyone laughing pretty hard most of the time. We ran pretty far, started fishing at 7 or so. It was slow so Gavin kept looking. We tried on some 30-60 models but only one or two would go. Mid morning we moved an hour or so & we had better luck on 60-90 fish.
As the day went on the bite got better. Eventually I hooked a (estimated 70-80#) fish on colt sniper. The thing took me up & down the rail. Unfortunately there were a few completely clueless people. They just really didn’t seem to know or care that they should get the f%$# outta the way when someone is coming down the rail-even with the deckhands yelling ahead.
After 10 minutes I was wrapped with 2-3 other individuals that didn’t even seem to know they were wrapped with me. The deckhand kept trying to weave me up to the bow so we could be in the clear but there was no luck. BING! Line snapped. I was pissed. As I brought in my line the last one wrapped around my topshot was pulled off. The decky said, “who has the blue line?” An extremely clueless person seemed bewildered to know it was them. They had absolutely no idea at all that they had just sawed me off on a career fish. They simply walked over, smiled, and said “oh, that’s mine, thanks” then took the line and walked away. It was obvious by their intonation that they had no fricken clue what they just did. Checking out my line I could see a clear “u-shaped” cut on my line that was colored with blue all around it. What can you do. Funny thing is the person was brought on by someone who totally knew what they were doing as they were instructing them for a few hours. Guess they skipped the part about f&^%ing it up for others?
That’s life. I’ve caused tangles before but never like that.
About an hour later the bite picked up & Gavin hooked a few. I was next to him on one & he handed it to me. Was awesome. At one point there were four of us in the bow all on fish. We were all getting our asses kicked.
I got mine up first with some help, and it came over the rail with a big thud. Ended up weighing about 70-75#. I was totally stoked. Biggest tuna I’ve ever had. The rest of the guys got theirs in as well. We were all completely stoked. A couple aces ended up with 3 fish, a couple with 2. And I think Gavin hooked and handed off at least 3. My buddy, who is an expert fisherman, years of experience, has all the gear, knows how to use it, has fished for ever, has gotten numerous jackpots, drew blanks that day. That’s life.
All in all, a pretty epic day on an epic boat with a great crew. The report said something like 60-80# but mine was 70# gutted & gilled and a number of the fish were quite a bit bigger than mine, so my guess is around 60-100# but who knows.
When we boarded John looked at my gear & convincingly sent me back to the tackle shop to rent a 80# rig. My buddy had 3 2 speed setups that he was on the fence about letting me use. I get it no worries. My largest rig was 60# but John said that won’t work.
Everything was pretty great. A group of joke-cracking knuckleheads on the boat kept everyone laughing pretty hard most of the time. We ran pretty far, started fishing at 7 or so. It was slow so Gavin kept looking. We tried on some 30-60 models but only one or two would go. Mid morning we moved an hour or so & we had better luck on 60-90 fish.
As the day went on the bite got better. Eventually I hooked a (estimated 70-80#) fish on colt sniper. The thing took me up & down the rail. Unfortunately there were a few completely clueless people. They just really didn’t seem to know or care that they should get the f%$# outta the way when someone is coming down the rail-even with the deckhands yelling ahead.
After 10 minutes I was wrapped with 2-3 other individuals that didn’t even seem to know they were wrapped with me. The deckhand kept trying to weave me up to the bow so we could be in the clear but there was no luck. BING! Line snapped. I was pissed. As I brought in my line the last one wrapped around my topshot was pulled off. The decky said, “who has the blue line?” An extremely clueless person seemed bewildered to know it was them. They had absolutely no idea at all that they had just sawed me off on a career fish. They simply walked over, smiled, and said “oh, that’s mine, thanks” then took the line and walked away. It was obvious by their intonation that they had no fricken clue what they just did. Checking out my line I could see a clear “u-shaped” cut on my line that was colored with blue all around it. What can you do. Funny thing is the person was brought on by someone who totally knew what they were doing as they were instructing them for a few hours. Guess they skipped the part about f&^%ing it up for others?
That’s life. I’ve caused tangles before but never like that.
About an hour later the bite picked up & Gavin hooked a few. I was next to him on one & he handed it to me. Was awesome. At one point there were four of us in the bow all on fish. We were all getting our asses kicked.
I got mine up first with some help, and it came over the rail with a big thud. Ended up weighing about 70-75#. I was totally stoked. Biggest tuna I’ve ever had. The rest of the guys got theirs in as well. We were all completely stoked. A couple aces ended up with 3 fish, a couple with 2. And I think Gavin hooked and handed off at least 3. My buddy, who is an expert fisherman, years of experience, has all the gear, knows how to use it, has fished for ever, has gotten numerous jackpots, drew blanks that day. That’s life.
All in all, a pretty epic day on an epic boat with a great crew. The report said something like 60-80# but mine was 70# gutted & gilled and a number of the fish were quite a bit bigger than mine, so my guess is around 60-100# but who knows.
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