late report from the Steel Leader 8/8-8/10

[NJtuna]

Headed south last Friday with a crew of 11. Loaded the boat with plenty of bait, ice, drinks and food for the Primo smoker/grill (sorry for the aroma tease of Rib Eyes and Chicken filling the canyon air). Arrived late Friday night and not much action on the night chunk. We had big schools of mackerel and a lot of squid under the boat all night but the tuna never showed. Saturday morning got up on the troll with nothing happening for a couple hours. Noticed the fleet was hooking fish on the day chunk and switched over to join in on the fun. Immediately had tuna eating chunks under the boat and boated 9 to 70lbs and losing many others due to 40 lb leader. We had a few 200 lb Big Eyes eating chunks but wouldn't touch a bait! Impressive sight to see these beasts eating chunks 10' from the surface. Had a White eat a live Mac and put on an aerial show until its bill cut the leader. Also had at least one Wahoo pick up a live Mac and sliced right through the leader breaking off. Saturday night around 12 had a smoking run off on a flat lined live Mac dumping half a 70 filled with hollow core in 45 seconds. Straight down at least 300 yards then b-lined towards the bow. While walking towards the bow to follow up on the fish, the hook pulls. Either one of those 200+ BE's or a big Sword... We'll get him next time! Finished the trip with some epic Blue Line Tile fishing. We fished a couple different spots landing around 70 tiles in a few hours. Now remember, there was 11 of us on board so we caught enough for each and left them biting. But wait, 70 in a few hours is impressive, but not as impressive as the size of about 8 of these BL's. Two of the fish beating the state record at 19.6 & 19.05 lbs. and the other 6 between 17-18 lbs. Captain Steve finds these fish and never on the small side! Well after cleaning up and heading in with the grill and stereo on, we didn't think the trip could get any better... Then one of the high speed Wahoo lures starts ripping drag. Crank it in disappointed to find a snagged bag! Set it back out and approx. 40 miles from home, the 70 is singing. Dumped a lot of line and after a good battle the gaff is in a nice 5'6" 70 lb Wahoo! Holy s#!t, that's one damn fine eating fish!!! Until the next offshore journey on the Steel Leader, this trip will keep replaying in my mind!