May 5, 2012
Today we had Jack, Travis, and Ed, from right here in Fort Lauderdale that wanted to catch some yellowfin tuna. We decided to make the run first thing in the morning so we caught 700 pilchards and loaded up our live wells the night before. We left the dock at 6:00 am and headed 79 miles northeast of Fort Lauderdale. It makes for a long trip, and fuel prices are high, but if you get lucky and find the fish, it is well worth the trip.
Once we got to the tuna grounds we were finding birds crashing bait but we were not catching the tunas. Ed was discouraged, and ready to go home after the first few flocks of birds didn’t produce fish, but I wouldn’t let him. We finally found the fish, and Jack caught a nice mahi-mahi. We started live chumming with the pilchards and all of a sudden there were mahi–mahi everywhere. We caught 7 mahi-mahi right away, and as we were live chumming and chunking, the yellowfins showed up. They too were everywhere around the boat, and JJ and I began casting baits. We hooked four huge yellowfin tunas right away and the battle began. It was all we could do to fight these fish on 50 lb smoke-colored Sufix® fishing line, with InvisiLine 60lb fluorocarbon leaders. The smallest fish was 65 lbs and we boated six nice yellowfins in all. This trip was a lot of work, but it was so much fun! Hurry up and give me a call, we have two more months of tuna fishing.
Tight Lines,
Capt David Ide
954 761 8045
