"The First Tuna Trip of the Year...
Weather or Not to Go?"
By George Jehn
August 30-31, 1999
Sometimes a certain individual can have an effect -- either good or bad -- on a particular fishing trip. This certainly was the case on the Viking Starship's inaugural tuna excursion of the '99 season. This was the trip originally scheduled to go all the way to the Atlantic Gulfstream. That person's last name was Dennis, with a first name of Hurricane and/or Tropical Storm.
After writing my previous article about this trip, I was so excited that along with Dave, I decided to take the scheduled three-day "trip to the edge." Up until the late in the evening prior to departure, the weather was forecast to be very good. Then just before sunset on Sunday a cold front blew through and the wind started blowing out of the northwest at about twenty knots. This still wasn't bad, as the prediction was for calming winds by Monday morning, our scheduled departure time. Then how come when I passed by LUNCH (that's the famous restaurant on Route 27 in Amagansett) on the drive to Montauk, Old Glory was standing straight out? And besides velocity, why was the howling wind out of (gulp) the northeast?
I immediately turned on the weather channel in my car, and quickly discovered that Dennis had inexplicably and quickly moved further up the Atlantic coast. The storm was now threatening the North Carolina and Virginia coastlines. But the high-pressure system that had moved from the Midwest across New York would prevent it from coming into our area. The problem was the area we would be fishing was right on the cutting edge, sandwiched in between the high and the low; the good weather and bad. The latter meant, well, perhaps no wind, but also meant that there may be a lot of wind. In other words, anything could happen. This also created a bit of a problem for Viking Starship Captains Rich Castellano and Craig Prothers. Should they go out or not? After checking all the available weather data it was decided to first steam out to an area of the Hudson Canyon where previous reports indicated excellent fishing. From that point, the meteorological conditions we encountered would decide whether or not we went any further south.
The first part of the journey out was good. It was fairly smooth, plus we had a following sea. After grabbing a few hours of shuteye, I threw my line out while we were steaming and an hour later picked up a small yellowfin tuna of about thirty pounds--not a bad start. However, by the time we arrived at the Canyon, the wind was howling and in contrast to the forecast, continued to increase in velocity throughout the day. The later it got, the nastier the weather became. The most frustrating part was you could see the clearly delineated line between the high and low-pressure systems approximately thirty miles north of our position. But the high never moved south. It remained stationary well to the north.
We continued to troll in very sloppy conditions for most of the day, because it would be impossible to anchor up in over six hundred feet of water in the elements we encountered. The captain tried drifting for a short period, and although there were four bites and two hookups, all the fish were lost due to the wind. There were a total of only six albacore and yellowfin taken, no doubt due to the turbulent waters. There are however, some points worth mentioning.
The first is that this was the friendliest group of people I have encountered in a long time. They were just a bunch of nice guys out for some enjoyable fishing--period. I didn't hear any complaints, because it was obvious the entire crew, the captains and the mate, Willy Baumann were trying their hardest. Much credit is due them for their extraordinary efforts. Upon our return, every passenger was issued a free pass for use on a subsequent Viking tuna trip of his choice. One final item that's worth mentioning, is that if you are planning a party boat tuna trip this year, inquire if the boat will be trolling. If trolling is in the cards, try using zucchini-colored daisy chain trolling lures. The author used one, and since four of the six fish caught were taken on this one lure, that's too high a percentage to relegate to chance.
I guess we'll have to wait until next year for a trip to the edge. But in the meantime there will be plenty of trips to the Canyons with open spots on the boat. And there are plenty of huge tuna out there. Go out and catch a few.
To send us your fishing reports, Click Here.
Return to Main Page or Dave's Special Reports.
After writing my previous article about this trip, I was so excited that along with Dave, I decided to take the scheduled three-day "trip to the edge." Up until the late in the evening prior to departure, the weather was forecast to be very good. Then just before sunset on Sunday a cold front blew through and the wind started blowing out of the northwest at about twenty knots. This still wasn't bad, as the prediction was for calming winds by Monday morning, our scheduled departure time. Then how come when I passed by LUNCH (that's the famous restaurant on Route 27 in Amagansett) on the drive to Montauk, Old Glory was standing straight out? And besides velocity, why was the howling wind out of (gulp) the northeast?
I immediately turned on the weather channel in my car, and quickly discovered that Dennis had inexplicably and quickly moved further up the Atlantic coast. The storm was now threatening the North Carolina and Virginia coastlines. But the high-pressure system that had moved from the Midwest across New York would prevent it from coming into our area. The problem was the area we would be fishing was right on the cutting edge, sandwiched in between the high and the low; the good weather and bad. The latter meant, well, perhaps no wind, but also meant that there may be a lot of wind. In other words, anything could happen. This also created a bit of a problem for Viking Starship Captains Rich Castellano and Craig Prothers. Should they go out or not? After checking all the available weather data it was decided to first steam out to an area of the Hudson Canyon where previous reports indicated excellent fishing. From that point, the meteorological conditions we encountered would decide whether or not we went any further south.
The first part of the journey out was good. It was fairly smooth, plus we had a following sea. After grabbing a few hours of shuteye, I threw my line out while we were steaming and an hour later picked up a small yellowfin tuna of about thirty pounds--not a bad start. However, by the time we arrived at the Canyon, the wind was howling and in contrast to the forecast, continued to increase in velocity throughout the day. The later it got, the nastier the weather became. The most frustrating part was you could see the clearly delineated line between the high and low-pressure systems approximately thirty miles north of our position. But the high never moved south. It remained stationary well to the north.
We continued to troll in very sloppy conditions for most of the day, because it would be impossible to anchor up in over six hundred feet of water in the elements we encountered. The captain tried drifting for a short period, and although there were four bites and two hookups, all the fish were lost due to the wind. There were a total of only six albacore and yellowfin taken, no doubt due to the turbulent waters. There are however, some points worth mentioning.
The first is that this was the friendliest group of people I have encountered in a long time. They were just a bunch of nice guys out for some enjoyable fishing--period. I didn't hear any complaints, because it was obvious the entire crew, the captains and the mate, Willy Baumann were trying their hardest. Much credit is due them for their extraordinary efforts. Upon our return, every passenger was issued a free pass for use on a subsequent Viking tuna trip of his choice. One final item that's worth mentioning, is that if you are planning a party boat tuna trip this year, inquire if the boat will be trolling. If trolling is in the cards, try using zucchini-colored daisy chain trolling lures. The author used one, and since four of the six fish caught were taken on this one lure, that's too high a percentage to relegate to chance.
I guess we'll have to wait until next year for a trip to the edge. But in the meantime there will be plenty of trips to the Canyons with open spots on the boat. And there are plenty of huge tuna out there. Go out and catch a few.
To send us your fishing reports, Click Here.
Return to Main Page or Dave's Special Reports.