Ship’s Log September 7th 2012
This was one of the most amazing tuna trips on record to date. Not a huge number of fish landed with 112 put onto the ice that day (plus a random mahi mahi), but one of the most memorable for Chris and I.
We were approximately 40 miles southwest of Charleston on a glassy warm sea. The water temperature was about 64 degrees and everywhere the eye could see there was birds, bait and scattered schools of feeding albacore. These were large fish with many over 30 pounds, and the overall 5 day trip averaged nearly 23 pounds per fish. I was working in the “hatch” at the stern of the boat with my feet and waist below deck and my chest and arms above in order to pull the fish close enough to reach out and gaff them, swing them aboard, bleed them and then prepare to do it again… Chris was on the wheel, watching out ahead and aiming for jumper schools while tossing anchovies out of the window in the front of the cabin.
I looked out and saw a large marlin jump and do a tail dance as if it were on a hook, and then do it again. It was about 200 yards out and working in a seam of hot water while thrashing through schools of bait. I hollered at Chris, “DID YOU SEE THAT MARLIN JUMPING?” He came out of the cabin and said, “No, where?” I said, “Never mind it’s gone.” I don’t want anything to do with a marlin on my jigs, we do not have any drag or give, just a spring on the wooden pole, a certain amount of 250 pound tuna cord, a wooden surface water chugger, and 21 feet of 200 pound test monofilament leader attached to a jig. We run between 10 and 13 lines similar to that one while trolling about 5.5 knots. A marlin would bust something and the interaction would be instantaneous, and possibly quite costly.
I was bringing in big tuna consistently one after another. Not a red hot bite, but rarely a moment without at least one fish on, while pulling in another.
I had just gaffed, bled and slid a big tuna forward toward the ice hatch, and reached up to grab a tag line for another fish which had hit a jig approximately 75 feet behind the stern on the starboard side when I looked up and saw a GIANT GREAT WHITE SHARK leap straight out of the water, not head up and tail down, but with its belly horizontal to sea, its huge mouth was wide open as it inhaled my 25 pound albacore, its tail was thrashing to the side and its body was shaped like a banana, I screamed to Chris, “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!” and then it was gone. I pulled in the water chugger and only 12 feet of monofilament leader was left, the jig and the tuna and 9 feet of leader was clean cut and GONE! Chris never saw a bit of it, he came out and looked around and basically said “cool.” And went back in to man the wheel.
About 15 minutes later I was back to pulling tuna and Chris yelled, “AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!” and I looked forward and saw the remnants of a splash off the port bow, foamy water and rings leftover from whatever. Chris came flying out of the cabin yelling about a “GIANT WHALE!!” that he saw breach right in front of the boat. “DID YOU SEE THAT!! DID YOU SEE THAT WHALE?”… “No I didn’t see it.” We really could not understand how each of us saw what we saw and had nobody else to witness the marvelous events. I scratched my head, Chris scratched his and we both went back to our stations deep in thought.