Once again the day started before dawn. Six hardy fishermen--Don,
Brian, Paul, John, Ryan, and Dave--boarded The
Bequia at 4:45 A.M. Captain Ron showed us the ocean temperature
maps, and we were looking for water 59 degrees or warmer. The albacore
tuna don't like to be in the water as cold as we were surfing in, so we
were heading out to sea. Our target numbers were "32 and 30", which must
be shorthand for the minutes of latitude and longitude. Monterey Bay is
roughly 36 degrees and 50 minutes west in latitude and 122 degrees
and 0 minutes north in longitude, so we were probably heading for
36 degrees and 32 minutes by 122 degrees and 30 minutes, or about 30 miles
west of Carmel. We left the rest of the clan sleeping, with plans to go
to Carmel by car latter in the day.
The deckhand Tim told us that when albacore are biting, sometimes you can get two poles with fish on them, called a double, or even three poles, called a triple. However, the day before his brother was a deckhand on another "6 pack" (Coast Guard approved boat for 6 fishermen), and they caught just one albacore. As it is very early in the season, they were expected to weigh about 10 pounds. A few months later they might grow to 30 pounds.
The captain put the radio traffic on a loud speaker so that we could hear the other boat captains talk about the fishing conditions. One captain said the albacore were hitting at "30 and 34," which was close to where we were headed. Along the way we saw a few stray shearwaters.
Although the captain said the seas were about average, the four teenagers all got seasick, and fed the fish their breakfast. Don figured that the Red Lava drinks at dinner innoculated the two uncles from problems.
At about 7:20 we reached 32 and 30, and the deckhand set up 4 fishing poles along the stern (rear). Each line went down through a clip before going out to sea, so that when a tuna hit the lure the line would snap up out of the clip and the pole would bend. He also set up two fishing poles on each side using outriggers. Outriggers are 20-foot rods that sit perpendicular to the ship with pulleys, so that he could attach the fish line to a clip and they are pulled out to the sides of the ship. (You can see them going up at an angle from the middle of the boat in the picture.) Thus the captain had 8 parallel lines dragging behind the boat as he trolled for albacore, and he stayed in the top of the boat to look for tuna and watch the lines.
The plan was just to troll with lures of different colors (including one named after Jerry Garcia), until we got a hit. To avoid getting tangled, the rest of us would real in the other 7 lines. We would then presumably need to switch to live bait, in this case sardines. I asked that if there were a school of fish, why would only one line be taken? Tim shrugged his shoulders, saying who knew what fish think?
At 7:30 a pole on the left bent and its line came out of the clip. Don was first to the pole, and grabbed it while the fish pulled out line. The rest of us reeled in the other poles, to avoid tangling the lines. The best fisherman of the group, Don, struggled reeling in the fish and wore out his forearms. It took five minutes to reel it in, but then Tim gaffed our first fish. It was a 10-pounder, and you can see the green squid lure.
We decided we would alternate so that everyone would get a fish by the end of the day. Ten minutes later the pole in the left corner bent again, and Brian reeled it in, we we did the same fire drill on the other poles. Brian landed a twin of the first one. Another ten minutes and another albacore, this for Ryan. Same size tuna, but this time on the right. Paul was next, and reeled his in on the left corner again. John and I were next up, and soon two poles bent - a double! We got our turn, learned how hard it was to reel tuna for 5 minutes, and then had our two ten pounders. An hour of fishing led to 6 albacore and 12 sore forearms. We were tired but excited, as we all had a fish, and team had 4 singles and 1 double.
A few minutes later a pole bent again, and we had another single. Then three poles bent! Don, Ryan, and Brian grabbed them. While I was reeling in an empty line, I noticed that the the pole next to me was sitting there out of the clip, and John yelled on the other side that the pole next to him had a hit. By the time we grabbed the other poles, the fish had tossed the lures. The three fishermen exchanged positions as the fish bobbed and weaved so as to avoid tangles, and we landed our rare triple.
Afterwards we realized that when a pole bent we should wait a bit before reeling in the others, as more tuna might grab the other lines. Nevertheless, we were up to 10 albacore in an hour and a quarter, with 5 singles, 1 double, and 1 triple.
As soon as Tim got all the lines in, we got two more hits. This time we waited before reeling in, and we got a third and then a fourth hit. A quad! (The boat wasn't big enough to get everyone in these shots.) Once again the four fishermen bobbed and weaved following the tuna, and we landed all the fish without a single tangle. We had fished for the cycle: single, double, triple, and quad, with a total 14 nice ten-pounders.
Then things got fast and furious. A few minutes after Tim would get the lines in, we would get fish. Next were a double, another quad, a triple, getting us to 23 tuna in 2.5 hours of fishing.
We got another double, but it took Paul a long time to reel it n. It proved to be the biggest albacore of the day, which Tim estimated to be a 30-pounder. Paul's giant signaled bigger fish were biting.
We then hit a triple, with Dave landing a 25-pounder and then Ryan landing a 20-pounder. After 3.5 hours of fishing we had 28 tuna, from 5 singles, 3 doubles, 3 triples, and 2 quads.
We followed this giant triple with two poles bending. We grabbed them and lost our only fish that was hooked. Don started reeling in the other, but it kept stripping out line. Three times they tightened the drag, and three times the fish ran. We were starting to wonder whether Don would ever be able to reel this one in. Don finally got it to the boat, and it was very close to Paul's.
We decided to stop after a little over four hours of fishing, coming back two hours early. Our haul was 33 albacore, from 10 to 30 pounds. The final scorecard was 6 singles, 3 doubles, 3 triples, and 3 quads. Because we rotated, three of us each landed 6 fish and three of us each landed 5. Brian's 5 was impressive since he spent more than half the time lying down trying to recover from motion sickness. Of the 34 fish we hooked, we landed 33. The Captain said this was the biggest day his boat had ever seen, and from the radio traffic we surely had the best catch of the day. He complemented us on our fishing, and thought the teenagers did especially well.
After cleaning, we figure we had more than 150 pounds of tuna to eat. At $8.50 a pound at the local Safeway, this was one of our few fishing trips were the value of the fish exceed the cost of trip. We froze 3/4's of the tuna, had the rest smoked, and all the various familiess of the Patterson clan all left with plenty of tuna in their luggage.
Just about the time that we were heading back to port with a boatload of tuna, the landblubbers of the clan left to see the Monterey Aquarium. They saw plenty of fish, and Lyle got to visit a friend stationed at Monterey, but they probably didn't see as many tuna.
