Capt. Mike's 1/26-1/31 Lump report

[Captain Mike Ellis]

It looks as I am going to have a few unexpected days off due to bad weather. With a iffy forcast for this weekend. Arkansas was a little to far for my guys to travel for one day of fishing. Now for the fishing reports from the last three days. I wish I had more to say about the fishing than I do but it was slow for me the last two days.
I had Rob Sarno and Bill Mansey from Half Hitch tackle out on the Glacier Bay in search of their first yellowfin. As soon as the anchor came tight it was all of the blackfin you could possibly want. Bill had brought along 25lbs. of Boston mackeral to spice up the chum slick. Those mackeral sure do put out a lot of oil. We were constanly plagued by kingfish cutoffs until Rob hooked into the first yellowfin of the day. It wasn’t a big lump yellow but still a solid 50 pounds. After pictures and congratulations it was back to the fishing. We had several good blowups on live mullet but could never connect with them. Finaly we had a yellow that was just a little to greedy blow up on a mullet on a rod that Bill had brought along and had the hook solid. Bill made pretty short work out of his fish which we didn’t weigh but it would be in the 70-80 pound range. The best part was the look I got when I went into the fishbox and brought out a blackfin to cut up for chum. I don’t think that Rob and Bill had the same outlook as I did on what a blackfin’s best use was. But they consented and let me use two for chum. As it turned out we didn’t catch any yellowfin on them but we at least put the two blackfin we used back in the boat with fresh ones.
On Monday I had Paul Vrablic and his crew of guys from Bellsouth out for a day. Theses guys are from West Palm and Boca Raton and are up here helping us rebuild the telephone system down in Venice. They were scheduled to fish on the Contender but a sick Verado had me switching out boats and tackle,ice and bait to the Glacier Bay. It was a little hetic that morning but things could only improve from there. We got to the lump a little late because of that but it didn’t matter to much. The report on the radio was the bite was slow but all the bites were from large fish. I cut up about a half dozen to start the chum slick and started chunking 101. Then after about five hookbaits hit the water. I told Randy McGuire that the bait I had just put on his line was the one. Well it turned out to be just that. Randy got a solid take and the fish didn’t do much at first until Randy started to put some heat on him. Then he started dumping a 30W with 18lbs. of drag like it was nothing. The fight was typical of lump tuna while we got Randy in the harness and ready for battle the fish ran up high and to the anchor rope. I dumped the anchor and gave chase. We keep moving a 100 yards on either side of our anchor the entire time. The worst part was when I got to see the fish for the first time. It was pretty far away but it was clear that we had a big boy on. The fight went back and forth for about 45 minutes until the tuna came back up and made a run straight into the rest of the fleet. I only had one order to Randy and it was to get ready to reel for all he was worth. Of course it wasn’t as civil as that but the message was very clear. I goosed the throttles and ran about 30 yards or so up to the fish. It was still swimming upright when I looked over the side at it and reached for the big gaff. I quickly stuck the yellow in the gillplate and tried to lift but it wasn’t happening. I passed the first gaff off and placed another gaff into it’s head. It took us three tries and a lot of grunting to get it over the side but when it landed on the deck not a word was said. It was just complete silence. I have never had a tuna of that size come over the gunnel of Relentless that big before. So congratulations and some pictures were taken and it was back to the anchor to try for another fish. I could not buy a blackfin or a bonito the entire rest of the day. And from the radio the few boats that had red meat were catching some fish. Finaly Tommy Pelligrin was leaving and offerd me one bonito. I put it to use as hook baits and chum. The last piece I had went on Paul’s rod and he got a screaming pickup. The fish was heating up the 30W pretty good and making a beeline for another boat nearby. So I dumped the anchor again and gave chase. I had to go around the other boat and luckily the fish was leaving the lump. I thought we had it made. But as luck would have it the hook pulled. The only words from Paul’s mouth was thank goodness it got off. With that said I said I made the decision to head for the barn and weigh our fish. Back at Charlie Hardison’t it bottomed out the scale there. So we loaded the fish up in Randy’s truck and made a beeline for Griffin’s commercial dock and a certified scale. Where the fish weighed in at 206.2lbs. good enough for nineth in the state. The fish was caught on a Cape fear 5080 and a Shimano Tiagra 30W with 80lb Jerry Brown hollowcore and a 25 yard topshot of pinky Yo-Zuri flurocarbon and a 7/0 blue Frenzy hook.
This is where my luck turned my guys for the next day were on the dock waiting for me to get back and saw the fish and were pumped up for there turn. Talk about pressure. Well the lump was cold and green the next day with lots of current. We stuck it out for a couple of hours before we pulled the hook and headed south to try something different. I only had two live mullet in the well. So I put them out and almost immediately we had a double. Both yellowfin were in the 30lb class but they were still yellowfins. One made it in the boat and the other was lost at boatside. We made a few drifts with chum but had no luck with it. We manged one other barly legal yellowfin on a swimbait and after that it was time to call it a day and head for the barn. While cleaning both fish there stomachs were full of chum but they wouldn’t touch a piece with a hook in it. My bad luck continues over to the next day as well. I only managed to catch a measly six b-liners. In the process I used 170lbs. of chum. I learned that the distance the distance from hero to zero is not that far at all. I will be back at it again on Monday. With hopefully better results.
Capt. Mike

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[RiskTaker]

Wow, Capt. Mike that is one amazing fish. I sure wish that they were a more regular feature on the western edge of the Gulfstream here in SE Florida.

[Capt Ted]

awsome!

[Deep_Sea_Gull]

Nice cow feesh! Congrats on a record book entry.

[Islander]

Capt Mike, Jam- up job to you and your anglers.

[mors_sum]

Nice one!

[quack quack]

Mike do you guys ever troll for the tuna? Big plastics or big bally?

[Shark Tagger]

I'll have 1 million tuna rolls please