2019 Islander Mothership Trip to San Clemente Island

[f'nsabiki]

Beautiful pics-how do you like your new Outback?

[rhyak]

Originally Posted by f'nsabiki

Beautiful pics-how do you like your new Outback?

Love the new outback, has a ton of more room and the deck layout is really nice.



Definetly harder to manage as far as weight and length compared to the prior models.

[FISH11]

I saw it earlier but didn't quite figure out then, that the last picture got flipped during editing. All the writing is backwards. Funny!

[Scoot]

Very cool, thanks

[jbl_91762]

Thanks for posting! Its on my bucket list for sure. My bud went on the 3 day the week before and was not as lucky only landed one YT.

[lbsurf2ca]

Looked like an awesome trip. Where's the bluefin footage? Was that a different trip?

[Uncle_Tomas]

Ok i know that all of you will be just shaking your head reading this but here we go. I was one of those crazy enough kayakers who thought it’s gonna be fun to mess with 130lbs (captains estimate) bluefin. After chasing them for over an hour (when I got close enough to the boil they would of course dive and show up half a mile away) I got bit. Right after I set the hook my line started peeling at the speed of light. I though my Lexa 400HD is going to explode. (Apparently it’s not HD enough). My 20 lbs leader broke 5 seconds into the fight. I was happy with that when I realized that I am going to loose all my braid as I could not stop that fish.
After that I reached back and switched to my heaviest set up I had with me that day (65 lbs braid, 40lbs mono top shot, medium rod with Penn Squall reel). The worst thing is that I had two speed set up on boat I just did not think I am going to need it hah.
Took me another hour of chasing boilers before I got bit again. At this point I am sitting in the middle of boiler and I am thinking that this is the craziest thing ever. One of the bluefin inhaled my sardine and we went for a ride. I was holding on for about 2 hours. Thank god it was super calm that day. By the time Islander came to check up on me I was almost 4 miles out. I think it pulled me for about 2 miles. During the fight I was able to get good chunk of my line back after I manage to turn the tuna around but it always followed by tuna taking off and getting the line back. I was pretty consistently half spooled and it was getting late and I was being pulled further and further away and I was also not able to reach the boat with my VHF at this point so I decided to button down the drag and start pumping. I figured I will probably break the line but I could not wait any longer. Then I saw that Islander was heading my way. I was expecting that captain is going to yell at me but he just told me that I am getting little too far and was asking about the set up I was using.
We decided that I will hand my rod over to deck hand on boat and will try to fight the fish from the boat. So I did just that and crew helped me to get on boat. The crew took over the rod and they started to work the fish. Unfortunately my live bait hooks that I typically use for pelagics stayed at the bag on boat that morning. It was not a big deal since I was planning on using jigs mostly and maybe troll for halibut. For that I had set of circle hooks. The one I had this BFT hooked on was not heavy duty by any means and once they started to put some pressure on fish the circle hook bent and BFT was free. Pretty big disappointment but it was amazing experience nevertheless.

Sent from my iPhone

[Uncle_Tomas]

Could not upload videos directly on here.

https://youtu.be/ixobg5M5wRY
https://youtu.be/xL45jZHTBgY

[Amish Ed]

Originally Posted by Uncle_Tomas

Ok i know that all of you will be just shaking your head reading this but here we go. I was one of those crazy enough kayakers who thought it’s gonna be fun to mess with 130lbs (captains estimate) bluefin. After chasing them for over an hour (when I got close enough to the boil they would of course dive and show up half a mile away) I got bit. Right after I set the hook my line started peeling at the speed of light. I though my Lexa 400HD is going to explode. (Apparently it’s not HD enough). My 20 lbs leader broke 5 seconds into the fight. I was happy with that when I realized that I am going to loose all my braid as I could not stop that fish.
After that I reached back and switched to my heaviest set up I had with me that day (65 lbs braid, 40lbs mono top shot, medium rod with Penn Squall reel). The worst thing is that I had two speed set up on boat I just did not think I am going to need it hah.
Took me another hour of chasing boilers before I got bit again. At this point I am sitting in the middle of boiler and I am thinking that this is the craziest thing ever. One of the bluefin inhaled my sardine and we went for a ride. I was holding on for about 2 hours. Thank god it was super calm that day. By the time Islander came to check up on me I was almost 4 miles out. I think it pulled me for about 2 miles. During the fight I was able to get good chunk of my line back after I manage to turn the tuna around but it always followed by tuna taking off and getting the line back. I was pretty consistently half spooled and it was getting late and I was being pulled further and further away and I was also not able to reach the boat with my VHF at this point so I decided to button down the drag and start pumping. I figured I will probably break the line but I could not wait any longer. Then I saw that Islander was heading my way. I was expecting that captain is going to yell at me but he just told me that I am getting little too far and was asking about the set up I was using.
We decided that I will hand my rod over to deck hand on boat and will try to fight the fish from the boat. So I did just that and crew helped me to get on boat. The crew took over the rod and they started to work the fish. Unfortunately my live bait hooks that I typically use for pelagics stayed at the bag on boat that morning. It was not a big deal since I was planning on using jigs mostly and maybe troll for halibut. For that I had set of circle hooks. The one I had this BFT hooked on was not heavy duty by any means and once they started to put some pressure on fish the circle hook bent and BFT was free. Pretty big disappointment but it was amazing experience nevertheless.

Sent from my iPhone

That's pretty epic. After all the rumors and speculation on FB about you and those BFT, I'm glad to hear what actually happened. Too bad about the hook choice.