Written by: Jeff Eardley
Mobile, AL
Saturday was one of those mornings that you sit back and daydream of a few days before any trip offshore; slick seas, plentiful live bait, and big tuna jumping out of the water!
We left the dock early with lofty aspirations. The wind was a bit heavier than what the forecast had promised, but that was no surprise. We made our way out to the ships while tying on Sabiki rigs to our smaller bait catcher setups. Once at our chosen ship the bait was plentiful. We were able to completely fill the live well up within an hour; we had cigar minnows, green backs, pogies, and blue-runner.
With the live well full we headed on out. We found ourselves roughly 85 miles offshore with the sun rising on our backs and the soothing salty breeze in our faces. It was time to fish! We started by checking around a drill ship with no luck. We stayed on the first drill ship for about 20 minutes; no fish were working, no birds diving, and minimal marks on the sonar. We decided to head out a bit further.
The next drill ship we came to had the action we were looking for. Birds were diving and large yellowfin tuna were jumping out of the water! We got our baits ready, boat positioned, and freelined a few small blue-runner out of the back of the boat. It didn’t take long before the Talica was absolutely screaming from the rod holder!! FISH ON we screamed!!
The excitement grew with every minute… it became a chess match of correct engine management, boat position, and skill on the rod and reel to try and defeat the large tuna we had on the end of the line. We wanted to do everything as perfectly as possible to give ourselves every chance we could of landing this fish.
We were engaged with this tuna for roughly an hour, in a tug of war, before the unthinkable happened; the handle of the reel broke off!! Quick thinking and problem solving led to a pair of gloves being located from inside the console and the fight was back on! We would pull the line down with the left hand toward the reel and use the right hand to try and spin the small piece of lever that was left with our fingers. This went on for another 30 minutes as we battled our fish.
Eventually, our big tuna tired and started making those famous circles as she came toward the surface. We placed a gaff in the nearest rod holder, bumped the starboard motor in gear, and as she made her last large circle, we were able to sink the gaff in!!
This massive tuna had finally been defeated, and we were all overcome with joy and adrenaline when she hit the deck! What a day, what a fight, and what a memory to share with our close friends.
