Great Offshore Fishing: Of Falsie and Convicts

[alaskanaturally]

Of Falsies and Convicts


The first rod went down and Ruta grabbed it out of the holder. She obviously had a good fish. The the second rod bent in half and Martin slowed the boat and pulled it out. The two fish were making a pretty good run when the third rod went down.

The day had started with a question: Will we head offshore? Woke up at 4 AM and the 40% chance of thunderstorms had changed to 10%. "Let's go." Dillydallied around until about 6:30 and then headed out of Quinby Inlet toward the Lumpy Bottom, 35 miles offshore.

Nice morning: The full Moon was low in the sky in the west and the big red Sun had just risen. Just a slight chop. Stopped at 21 Mile Hill and trolled across it for 20 minutes. Nothing.

Pulled the lines in and sped the 12 miles toward the Lumpy. Half hour later we were letting lines out. The seas were 5-6 ft but with a very pleasant 12 second period. Within five minutes, we had the first hit. A very pretty false albacore, affectionately known as, "fat alberts." Took about 15 minutes to get him in and 10 minutes after letting the lines out again, we were into the three fish at once.

Amazingly, we were able to drag in all three of those fish. However, we had a birdsnest that took us a half hour to untangle.

The rest of the day went like that. We did get a number of little tuna (4-6 pounds) that were wearing striped pajamas: The convicts, also known as skipjack. Finished up by keeping six falsies between 9 and 17 pounds, and five convicts.

During the last hour of trolling we had a tremendous hit on the way way back line. We were pulling a green machine behind a couple of birdies. The fish ran out over 800 yards of line off our Okuma T-50 and almost spooled us before we were able to turn the boat. Ruta fought him for about 10 minutes before the hook pulled. This happened two more time resulting in lost fish.

The highlight of the day: Not exactly, but interesting. We had a fourth hit on this line where the fish bit off the leader just above the birdie. Went back over the same area and had a hit from another falsie. After bringing in that fish, we noticed that there was a birdie and green machine rapped around one of our props. Apparently, when the critter bit off our line, the birdie was buoyant enough to keep the rig floating and we drove over it.

Short of going over the side, we didn't know how to untangle it. Kept having visions of the shark or other kind the toothy critter biting off our rig. Discretion won out over valor and we decided to get off as much as we can and worry about it when we get in. Worked out fine.

Though many would not think they had a great day just catching fat alberts and skipjack, we do. In our opinions they are just as good as bluefin and better than yellowfin.

The wind picked up to between 15-20 from the SSW in the afternoon. The 35 mile ride home was quite sloppy but we didn't care because it was a wonderful day.

Good thing the fishing has picked up for us because our garden is just limping along. The drought has been tough. Our fruit and veggie crops will be minimum this year. Oh well! Thats the price of subsistence living.

[purple5ive]

Well done mate
Good read. And cracking fish.

[SparkyUK]

Beautiful fish, and a nice story with it. Gratz on a great session.

[CanuckDownUnder]

Great read, great fish! I don't know anyone who wouldn't have a great time catching those fish.

[TrevKing]

:good: , thanks for sharing.