From 5/24/01</font id=blue>
The ocean was calm and beautiful, the water was pretty blue, and we had boated a few nice dolphin and had already hooked up one Blue Marlin only to have him jump and spit our lure back at us. Suddenly our Captain shouted, “tuna ahead, get ready”. The cockpit came to life as everyone peered around the cabin to see what we were in for. As I looked up ahead, I could not believe my eyes. As far as I could see there were 40-60 lb Yellowfin tuna crashing the water. As we got closer we could see they were feeding on flying fish. Nature provides us with many amazing sights, and while I have witnessed many incredible events in nature, I cannot think of one that amazed me more than watching these big, powerful fish chasing and catching flying fish.
Suddenly, the port rigger clip snapped and the 5OTW began to scream. I looked to the portside of the boat and saw the school was coming right at the boat. The fish were jumping less than 20 feet from the boat. In a split second 6 of the 8 lines we were trolling went off. The best way to describe the cockpit at this point was “organized chaos”. Everyone was fighting a fish. We moved around each other, under each other and through each other several times in such a frenzy we made the rive dance look as basic as a Texas two-step. Thanks to experience and good communication we were able to land all six tuna.
Experiences like this, the strength and speed, and delicious flavor of these fish makes them a favorite target of lowcountry anglers. Fishing with an experienced captain and mate can make this an experience you remember for landing fish and not how many fish you lost.
May and June are two of the best months to target Yellowfin Tuna off of our coast. A charter with a good Captain and crew to experience some of this action, even if you only do it once, is an opportunity to have an experience that will be etched in your memory forever.
Andy Pickett,
CharlestonFishing.Com</font id=blue>