Name of Guest: Jim Carlisle, 7/8/98
E-Mail Address: jamesnc@earthlink.net
Dennis, Here's my write up the 6/27 to 7/05 8-day on the Excel. Good luck on your trip to the Azores. Jim Just got back from a great Braid-sponsored 8-day trip on the Excel. We left early on the 27th to get a jump on the other boats leaving that day (RR, Q105...). We were away by 10:30am and actually fished albies that day. We slowed down at 7pm and fished them until dark getting with everybody getting a fish or two before dark in real sloppy seas. We then headed south for Alijos Rocks. The Royal Star was a day ahead of us. We ran all day Sunday stopping to fish for giant squid for bait after dinner Sunday night. Randy and Tim on the Star were inside near the Rocks so we went outside to the Bank to scout that out. Kind of a slow day for us and we went inside in the afternoon. They were scratching a few tuna and we did too. Not much happening for us though. During dinner we headed back for the bank and fished squid just short of it. After anchoring up the big yellowtail really went off. We got over 50 of the bigger 20 to 50 pound stuff. My biggest was 39.7 pounds. Man can those things pull. I'm not much on dropper loop fishing but it was fun for awhile. That next morning (Tuesday) we picked a few tuna and I got a nice one that got shark bit at deep color. Weighed 65# after the bite. My 15 year old cousin Stephen caught the only kite fish of the day (that wasn't a shark) getting his biggest tuna ever, a 94 pounder. We then ran into the Rocks. Randy and Tim shared the inside ridge with us. We had a good afternoon there. The next morning the fish really went off good. We ended the day with something like 130+ quality tuna. The majority of the fish we were catching were in the 45 to 60 pound range with a few smaller and some bigger. It was basically flylining sardines on the anchor with 40# test. The Star took off and headed north to albacore land we had another day to go at the Rocks. Thursday morning the fish bit good again for a couple hours and I got a 87.4 pounder that ended up 3rd in the JP. That afternoon the conditions shut down again and we basically got nothing all afternoon. We ended up with something like 240 yellowfin and 88 yellowtail from the Rocks. We ran north all day Friday in some real sloppy seas. The 90-100 mile area was real good on albies so we were headed there. We got some fish early Saturday but they never came up like on the previous days. The local fleet was doing well up at 60-70 miles so we ran up there after lunch. That stuff went down in the afternoon too so we scratched some here and there. The grade of fish was real small (12-13 pounds) so no one on the boat seemed to care all that much after getting the quality yellowfin. One thing to note was the albacore ate the plastics real good. The color didn't seem to matter much as a bunch of us were throwing 4 and 5 inch plastics and doing pretty well. The crew said they have been working well on previous trips also. We also got a few 30 pound bluefin. All in all it was another excellant trip on the Excel. Oh yeah, we had a bunch of the new Eagle Claw light wire circle hooks on board to try. They were really really good. The crew tested them against an Owner Super Mutu hook that had wire almost twice the diameter and the Owner opened up before the Eagle Claw. I'm sure they'll be much cheaper too. The model number is L2004G and they're supposed to be available soon.