Hudson Canyon Report 9/25-9/26

[togzilla]

Got an invite from a friend to go on his buddies 35' Bertram for an overnight trolling/Chunking trip. With the dismal reports I was hesitant to go but with a forecast of 2-3 feet seas and knowing that the chunking bite has to break open at any time how could I resist. Best deciscion I made yet!
left the dock at 10:30am and started trolling around 2:00pm and by 7:00pm all we had to show for our efforts was a 3 lb. Mahi. Only about a dozen other boats in the area and nobody had a touch. Tremendous amount of bait, porpoise's and whales's so it looked very fishy. Set up for a drift on some great bait readings and began to chunk. Ton's of porpoise's balling up ribbonfish with whales breaching. Never have I seen so many ribbonfish. Very quite unitl about 10:00 and then it happened. My buddy gets a fish on a jig and a nice 70lb yellowfin came up. Next, my sardine gets hit an a 75lb. yellowfin in the box. Wanted to try out my new Bogan custom jigging stick and dropped down to wear we were marking and bam a nice 80lb. in the box. A few more from the other guys on sardines and now we have a few more in the box. Drop down to 110' where their were a couple of marks and I am quickly hooked up again. 5 minutes later a nice 100lb yellowfin comes up. God I love that Bogan jigging rod!
Drop back down to 70' where there was some nice marks and my jig gets slammed and my rod doubles over and then goes slack and I started cranking as fast as I can and up comes a 200-300lb swordfish that takes me to the other side and then under the boat and around the prop. Now I am doomed! I feel him thrashing and then nothing. Reeled up and his sword tore apart my leader. Next was a small longfin on my jig and then things slowed down. Good thing, we could not fit any more tuna in our coolers. Split at first light with 13 yellowfin between 70-100lbs. another one at 40lbs. and one longfin at about 40lbs. Great trip with great weather. We could have caught more but we were only fishing a few rods once are coolers were almost full. Attached is a picture of the 75lb. yellowfin.
Oh, and Andy S. if you are reading this post you should have said the hell with work and came with me. Maybe next time.