Science Trip

We ran the Healthy Grin out yesterday in search of Young of the Year bluefin tuna for Dr. John Graves. We started trolling little spoons on the 10-Fathom Hill inside of the weather buoy. There was nothing there. At the weather buoy, we caught some kinds of jacks. From there we started picking up frigate tuna, a lot of frigate tuna and some baby false albacore. We would circle wherever we found little fish, gradually trolling our way NE to a bit south of the Norfolk Canyon, in about 700 fathoms, where the boats were having a good marlin bite. We caught a single blackfin tuna, a handful of dolphin and a whole bunch of frigate tuna on the little spoons but no bluefin tuna. We got out to the marlin bite late in the day…frigate tuna and little dolphin were out there also. For the short time we were there, the action was good. We caught 3 white marlin missed a half-dozen others. No bluefin tuna but we did collect a DNA sample from each white marlin. We had a healthy blue marlin screaming drag on a big rod but the hook pulled before we were able to clear everything and get after it. The last white marlin we caught was on the last bait in the water. Gabe Sava was cranking in the last rod, one of the big baits, when a lit-up white came in and crushed it. It was a bit sporty out there.