Although we initially went to the Hatteras area the captain quickly realized the fish had all moved closer to Oregon Inlet so we chugged over there.
Ilya hooked the first BFT of the day using his Fisherman Spinoza 5120. He was really horsing the fish in despite what appeared to be a relatively large tuna. Ilya was using high drag and at one point when he was picking up some slack the tuna dove under the boat and everyone was shocked to hear a loud "PING" and looked over to see that the rod had snapped. So the first BFT would live to see another day.
We all continued to Jig but soon Tuna were busting all around the boat. In a flash, jigs came out of the water and topwater lures were flying through the sky. After a few lures hit the water, Evan came tight using an Ocea Pencil and began what would be a long fight.
While Evan fought, everyone else continued to jig and Mike also came tight with a BFT; double hookup! Mike made short work of the tuna and soon had what was probably a 60-70 pound BFT in the boat. We now had the age old dilemma: do we take the bird in hand or wait for the two in the bush? We decided to let the smaller bluefin go in hopes of landing what appeared to be a much larger BFT still battling in the water below.
After about 30 grueling minutes Evan realized that this tuna was in the for long haul and passed the rod. Over the course of the next hour, everyone helped out in landing what ended up being a 71" tuna; close to a 200 lb (weighed in at 195 at the dock after bleeding).
After the trophy BFT was landed, the action died down and no more tuna were hooked despite vigorous jigging. But at least everyone had their turn to fight a big tuna that day.
We did catch a couple of albacores too.
All in all, a really fun day despite only landing two bluefins (I guess that shows how spoiled we are that we lament over only landing ONLY TWO tuna :b)
Here are the pics:
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