Bluefin Tuna Fishing Report: Cockpit Chaos

by Capt. Bill Tippin

We’ve all had one of those days where anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Well, here is a true fish story that I think is worth sharing.

In Late August, Admiral Jack the owner, me (Capt. Bill), and Paul, CSE (Chief Static Engineer), went out fishing for the elusive bluefin tuna. We were serious about fishing, so Jack made sure that we were outfitted with the best gear. We are all best of friends, and whether we caught fish or not we always had fun going out. The smell of skunk had been on the boat since we started tuna fishing in mid June. Regardless, we left the dock at first light headed for the Regal Sword, about 30 miles east of Chatham.

The tuna were slow to bite and hard to catch that year. Seas were calm and we were able to get out to our spot in little over an hour. Our boat, the OUT~CAST, was a nice well rigged, 25-foot Grady White center console, with two 150 Yamahas. There were a lot of boats in the area—I counted 75 in about a 4-mile radius at that time of day.

The day looked promising, with a good number of whales and birds gathering in different spots. The sun was just up above the horizon, with a light breeze coming in from the SE. We headed ENE to get a little distance from the outside of the fleet and put out our spread. I had four squid bars out, with two on each side. I added a green daisy chain down the middle, way back.

Capt. Roger, a good friend of ours, was on his boat to the west of us and saw someone hook up, but they lost the fish. He hailed us on the radio and told us turn to the west. So we did, and not 15 minutes into our new course, BANG, the outrigger went off and the reel was screaming! Finally we were hooked up!

But, the BANG was different this time. It was bigger, and it was louder. A faulty roller clip on the starboard outrigger didn’t release. It was on the inside position and broke the outrigger pole at the first section, which was hanging on by a shred of aluminum.

Jack was on the helm, and I jumped into the harness. It all happened so fast that at first I didn’t realize that the clip had failed to release. Jack, seeing what had happened, stepped out from the helm and was trying to get the broken outrigger out of the way, but the line from the rod was still going through the clip and we couldn’t reach it to flip it loose. It was slamming into the side of the boat as the fish was still taking line. Fortunately, the outer line clip released when the pole broke so it was easier to clear that line.

It was a futile effort to try to rectify the problem in the direction we were going, so I said to Jack, “Get back on the helm and see if you can turn the boat.” But, when he went to turn around, he lost his balance and fell on the throttles, launching us forward! Wooo-hoo…

We had hooked the fish on a 50-class reel, and it had already stripped out 100 yards of line. There was around 400-plus yards on the reel to start, and I had about 50 yards of line left after the boost forward. I had loosened the drag some to try and lessen the tension of the line going through the clip. Because of the boost, the portside lines had released from their clips, and were tangling up. Ha!

There’s no other way to describe it. It was a shit show.

Paul in the meantime, while trying to clear the other spreader bars, “line locked” one of the 80s with a pink squid bar on it—still out 50 yards.

Jack yelled to him and said, “Paul, pull it in by hand,” but now both lines were tangled up and very close to the motors. I thought if we could turn right we could get the clip free, but we would also catch the other lines with the prop. Paul is a good mate, but with everything that was going on, all of us were making crazy mistakes.

We were in the middle of the fleet now and several boats realized we were hooked up. Wanting to get in on the action, a couple of boats had us pined in. This wouldn’t allow Jack to turn the boat left or right. All this time, I was still in the harness trying to get some line back! I wanted to put the rod back in one of the holders on the rail, but the angle of the line was too radical back to the clip, and the outrigger pole would have slammed into the rod or me.

Jack stepped out form the helm and was trying to help Paul with that mess, and I was close enough to the radio from where I was standing to reach the mic, so I told them to give us some room to turn and that we were hooked up. As if they couldn’t tell.

Jack finally got the boat turned enough for me to reach the clip and release it. Since it locked up on the take down, I thought I had the clip to tight, but I didn’t—it was easy to undo, too easy. Hmmm…..

Now, finally we were fighting the fish. I was still in the harness, but had begun making some progress, getting some line back.

The tuna wasn’t a “slob,” but it was a good fish with a lot of power.
Finally, after 20 minutes or so we saw color, and brought the fish alongside the boat. It was a fatty, over 200 pounds. When we got the fish on board and settled down, we all looked around to see the damage. It looked like a giant seagull had tried to make a nest in the cockpit of our boat.

It was truly amazing that we were able to land that fish with all the chaos that was going on. It took awhile, but we got everything cleaned up and headed for the barn. We laughed and talked about it all the way back in. And still do.