I woke up at 3 am because I was so excited over the reports from yesterday.

We ran out at 29 knots on a perfect ocean.

Before we got to our numbers, we saw acres and acres of jumpers and the biggest group of commercial boats I have ever seen.

We shut down on some jumpers and got a couple.

I went to fire up the motors and slide over to the next group and the port motor refused to start.

Damn.

Darell and I started tearing things apart, looking for the problem and then the CAT monitor died.

Nothing worked and I did the math and we had to leave to get back before the ebb, as we had to run 60 miles on one motor at 9 knots.

Yes, we left the best bite of the year after drifting aimlessly for an hour.

I figured there was ZERO chance of getting a mechanic out on the Friday before Labor Day, but I called Peterson CAT and they said no problem.

7 hours later we were at the dock and just for shits and giggles, I turned the key for the 500th (no joke) time, and it fired up????

The Peterson tech is on the boat right now, having replaced the dead motor display and is running down all possible probelms and said he is not leaving until he figures it out.

Running again in the AM (and I might just leave the motors on during bait stops).

Captain Mike

We ran 60 miles SW and found the commercial fleet, which is a good sign.

They all left just after we got there, which is a bad sign.

A buddy called us in and we found some biters.

We had them boiling and then they went down.

Two bait stops later, the fishing died and we did not get another fish the rest of the day.

We heard some really, really bad reports from some other boats, so are wondering where all the fish went?

At it again soon.

Captain Mike

Yesterday's reports from up north were lousy, so we decided to head south.

It did not look good, but a buddy called and told the commercial boat next to him was jackpoling tuna, so we ran deep SW.

We found some birds and jumpers and got them going pretty good.

We got sharked up and moved on to find more fish and the fish pretty much shut off for the day.

We did not feel so bad when we heard how the other charter boats did- 13 year-old (I think) Levi caught as many as the 12 pole boat next to us.

Lots of skunked charter boats today, so the lousy ocean does not have us as bummed out as we normally would be for canceling our Sunday trip.

Hopefully when we get away from the full moon fishing will pick up.

​Captain Mike

We ran back to where the fish had been around in pretty good numbers.

We were not marking much bait on the sonar, so we headed west.

We ran into a BIG school of jumpers and slid in.

The sonar was lit up with fish stacked up heavy underneath the boat, but we could not get them to go.

We hooked two on bait and busted them both off and the fish refused to play.

We had a bunch more chances throughout the day, but could not convert them into big numbers.

We are sitting out a few days and at it again on Saturday.

​Captain Mike

Today's crew had plugged the boat with us a bunch before, so we were excited to head out.

We went back to where we had seen tons of fish over the last week and ran into jumpers right away.

The fish were very boat shy and hard to keep up.

We had a slow morning, but at the end of the day we found a pile of birds and before we got to them a troll rod went off and it went WFO.

As you can see from the screen shot, there were a ton of fish under out boat.

We ended up putting 38 in the box and headed home on a decent ocean.

Captain MIke

We ran back to yesterday's hot spot and it was dead- no birds and no bait balls on the sonar.

We trolled west for around and hour with zero results, until a troll rod went off and then it went WFO.

Every rod was hooked up and we had them going for awhile.

We lost a few and the school went down.

We got them going again and were halfway plugged and figured it was a done deal.

Then it slowed down a bit.

Then it completely died.

We ended up 2/3rds plugged, including 4-5 BIG fish.

We are sitting out the wind until next week.

​Captain Mike

Today we had the legendary Alan Tani onboard and were stoked to take him back to the honey hole.

We never made it out, as we stopped on birds and it went WFO.

30 minutes later, one box was almost full.

It slowed a little, but we converted on bait on almost every troll fish and 53 fish later, it was time to go home.

Alan will be at the Ilwaco Tuna Club this Saturday putting on a reel clinic.

Stop by and say hi if you are around in the PM.

At it again in the AM.

​Captain Mike

We ran back to where we had some decent reports and had caught a lot of fish.

It was a desert.

John and I both looked at each other and said head west.

We ran deep west and started seeing lots of bait balls on the sonar and put in.

Pretty soon we got a troll fish and had them boiling around the boat.

We had a light crew with 4 guys, but they put the hurt on them and we damn near plugged the boat.

We quit early to beat the ebb and crossed a nice bar at high slack.

John and I are at it again in the AM.

​Captain Mike

We went back to the honey hole and started marking lots of bait, so we were pretty sure we were going to hammer the fish there.

We were wrong.

We burned holes in the ocean for 4 hours without a strike.

Time to move.

We ran west an hour towards where the Allrivers guys were catching fish.

We got a few right away and slowly picked up some fish.

We headed east, as we were about out of time when a troll fish turned into a WFO bite, with fish boiling everywhere.

Our conversion rate was excellent and pretty soon we had 11 fish on the deck and it was time to go.

Sitting out the wind for awhile (not a lot of fishable days in the forecast).

Captain Mike

Last year Mel Aho and his group crushed it, so we were excited to have them out again.

We ran out and a bunch of other boats stopped 10 miles inside of where we were yesterday and were in fish, but we decided to keep on going.

We were glad we did.

We lit it up right away and had an 11 fish stop.

We had them boiling 5-6 times and a few bait stops later, we had 47 fish and were out of room.

Clark and I are at again in the AM, before we sit out the wind for a few days.

Captain Mike