Report Date:
http://www.excelsportfishing.comJustin Fleck called in with a wrap up of the Mikkelsen Big Fish Special Trip. "We had a fantastic trip. The fishing was so good down here on both big tuna and wahoo that we nearly filled the boat to capacity in the first few days. The overall grade of fish down here is phenomenal, with most of the tuna being in the 130 to 200 lb. class. After everyone got plenty of fish to eat we decided to start releasing fish early on in the trip. Some days we'd release as many as 50 quality tuna. By the end of the trip we were releasing anything under 200 lbs. which included a lot of fish in the 170 to 190 lb. class.
"According to my notes we have 21 Cows over the 200 lb. mark that we weighed on the boat scale. Maybe a couple more that snuck into the fish holds during the heat of the battle. Sometimes it got hectic back there and we had to get the fish down. So maybe a few more.
"The highlights of the trip were that many of the people caught their personal best tuna. That included long time angler Andy Marcum with his personal best 278.6 lb. that he caught yesterday on the kite with a mackerel. Chris Forester also had an awesome trip, he had 5 Cows including a 275 lb. that he caught on a sardine and sinker rig in the middle of the night. Ralph Mikkelsen, the long ranger himself, added another Cow to his already impressive resume. Another highlight was what seemed like an endless supply of Wahoo down here right now. At some point it seemed like they were more of a pest to us biting off all of our hooks in the middle of the day while we were trying to fish for tuna. There are plenty of those guys around.
"To put it all in perspective after all of the fish that we caught and all of the fish we released I feel that we could easily have filled the boat twice during the 9 days we fished down here. It was incredible.
"On a side note there are still some slots available on our next trip down here leaving on May 10th. It is a 15 day trip and a very good group of anglers if you want a chance to come down here and get in on this fishery while it is red hot. If you want to get in on that trip call the office and talk to Jason 619-223-7493. Book a spot and let's go fishing! We'll check in again tomorrow."