Fort Bragg Madness 9/16

[Norcalfish80]

My first albacore trip in years and first ever on my boat. Launched at the crack of 3:30am after a night of little sleep in the parking lot with Christian and my friend who is visiting from Hawaii. Got to hang out with some cool dudes Friday night in the parking lot which was an unexpected positive. Reports from Friday were not great albacore and solid big eye but our hopes were up. Stopped at about 28 miles out on a hard break and started trolling at grey light. After an hour and a half of nada we landed two single albacore hook ups to maybe 12-15 lbs. Ended up staying in that area (15x19) and trolling around mostly by ourselves. Hooked our first big eye ever on a purple and black albacore clone 45 feet back on an 80 lb set up, after a hard 20-25 minute fight landed a beautiful 72" or so butterball fish. We reset after taking care of the fish and as soon as we finished setting lines out the mad Mac rod 100 yards back starts absolutely screaming. My Hawaiian friend and I fought the first one so Christian handled the second one solo and absolutely laid the wood to it. After maybe 15 minutes a 75"+ big eye hits the deck and we headed in at 10 am with no more kill bag space. Amazing day we will never forget spent with great friends. Christian is much better with technology and can add pics if he wants haha.

Three foot notes:

1. Huge thanks to Sam who I met on here for guiding us out of the harbor in the dark which can be tricky, amazing fisherman and awesome guy.
2. Christian is the best fishing buddy of all time and probably the only one I can say I've never had a bad day on the water with
3. Did 60 or so miles of running and four hours of trolling and only burned 20 gallons, gotta love Arimas.

[GregE]

Way to go!!   

I bet that SR 19 deck was crowded.  Pics needed

[fishmeister]

Way to go!!   

I bet that SR 19 deck was crowded.  Pics needed

 

Great story.  But, remember one of the "unwritten rules" of this site...."Without pics, it never happened" 

[Norcalfish80]

Haha I'm banned on mobile due to traveling out of the country so will have to wait til Christian can post some!

[christianbrat]

Dawwwww you're way too good to me bro!!!I absolutely love fishing with you and we are an elite team. That was probably the best day of fishing I'll ever have in all ways.

[beancounter]

Nice going guys

[Norcalfish80]

Way to go!! 

I bet that SR 19 deck was crowded.  Pics needed

Just a bit with 2 six foot kill bags, 350 or so lbs of fish and 380 lbs of ice. Don't have a pic with both kill bags but decided to try to enter the modern world and post a few added pics. Boat looked identical on both sides to the kill bag pic. Also enjoy Christian drinking a beer while fighting the second big eye and the smaller big eye with an albacore in it's mouth for scale purposes.

[fishmeister]

Now THAT'S what we were looking to see!

Christian looks to be about as talented with a beer as AJ is with boat re-builds.   

[Humboldt81]

Great day and what an outstanding way to fish Bragg for albacore first time. Good to finally meet up after a couple seasons of text chatter and near misses at Loch Lomond. Anyway, my son in law made his first albacore trip and we ended with 20 mostly peanuts but he did boat the biggest at 30+...commenting once landed that he now understood what I was saying about the strength of the fish. We had our chance for a few more and could have plugged and beat my 27 fish boat record for 2 but I wanted to get back on the trailer before the masses returned. Hit 38 on glass water coming in and had plenty of throttle left. Great day and so very happy to have helped you Austin get down the river and out through the jaws. Fort Bragg is a gem and not many Arimas around these parts when I first launched in 2001. Certainly see many now...mostly during albie season. Rest of the year my trusty SR...23rd season and going strong.

[Humboldt81]

Great pics!! Doesn't get any better than that. Looking forward to a trip with the 2 of you.

[christianbrat]

Ponzu and Garlic scapes from the garden. Going on the BBQ with some Applewood shortly

[christianbrat]

Damn flip flop tan is bad

[christianbrat]

Yummy

[Norcalfish80]

Can't let Christian post all the good food pics 

[headduck]

Love it. Cbs 15min fight... beer break midway. 

Well done. Not forgotten that one soon, I'm sure.

[Wiley]

Niiiice work !

[DARice]

So sweet!

[Capt. B]

WOW!!  Great job on catching those and the Chef puts out an amazing looking spread.       
Saw a video yesterday with another Arima that looks to have been out there with the crowd this week. "NorCal Bigeye Ahi | Fort Bragg, CA" -  this is the title of his posting on Youtube, I just can't figure out how to attach the link. But he is sporting a nice Arima Yellowtail 19' boat.

[christianbrat]

thats Adrian's video, I think.  he fished the day before us and hooked 1 and lost one too!

[Crackerbox]

Awesome!
Joe

[BestBoats]

Awesome! Congratulations 

[GregE]

Thanks for the pictures- most anyway   several are only partially visible

[christianbrat]

Thanks for the pictures- most anyway   several are only partially visible

thats a website issue. Does it to all the posts for some reason. Gotta click on the pics