ElPedro
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« on: September 28, 2006, 07:30:18 AM » |
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Scrimp boat report #1
The offshore shrimp boats have been fishing hard since early July. By this time of year, they have been out there long enough to amass an array of offshore species, mostly tuna and sharks, allowing anglers a chance to get into some killer action. There are a few different ways to fish shrimp boats for tuna, to find out more I spoke with Captain Scott Hickman of Circle H Outfitters, aboard Pato Loco, out of Galveston, TX.
Capt. Hickman generally carrys about 80-100# of fresh frozen pogies, chops them up and starts chunking behind every boat, just chopping them up. He said,
“That gets the bontitos going, the blackfins will come up under the bonitos, and we’ll get a few of those, and it depends on the water depth, but usually a few yellowfin will show up. We use TLD 25s with 40# test on blackfins, if I see a yellowfin that I want to pitch a bait to, I use a two speed 50 wide.”
Capt. Scott hooked an estimated 80 pound yellowfin the other day that fell prey to the circling sharks that are found following shrimp boats.
“That sometimes can be our problem, these shrimp boats will have big bull and tiger sharks underneath them. On a trip the other day, I probably hooked about 40 tunas, and we landed 17. The sharks ate the majority of the fish.”
Captain Andy Flood aboard Hideout, out of Port Aransas, Texas, fishes for tuna in much the same way, except he utilizes the massive amounts of cull or by-catch that can be found on shrimp boats. Capt. Flood said,
“Get all the cull you can, try to keep the shrimpers from dumping their cull, give them a case of beer or whatever, and get all the cull you can hold and have them hold onto theirs, throw a few test pieces in, and when they come up, ask the shrimper if he’ll hold his cull until they get about a half a mile from you, that way you only have to make one drift.”
Captain Flood would know about fishing shrimp boats, as he was the mate aboard Get Reel out of Port Aransas, Texas, when Jim Dickson caught the current state record yellowfin tuna, behind a shrimp boat, that tipped the scales at 216 pounds. Speaking of that particular trip, Flood said,
“We pulled up to a draggin shrimp boat, we saw the guys kicking some cull and pointing down to the water, and we saw a pretty big boil. So we pulled up next to them and started dumping cull, and all the fish came up to us. We saw a lot of blackfins, we had three or four blackfins on and all of a sudden all the blackfins disappeared and that big yellowfin came out from underneath the boat, twice.”
Captain Flood’s final advice in shrimp boat fishing is to use circle hooks, get all the cull you can and watch your thumb.
Another successful shrimp boat fisherman is Capt. Nate Forbes of Iced Down out of Port Aransas, Texas. Capt. Nate utilizes yet a different technique, when shrimp boat fishing,
“Generally for tuna fish, I like any boats that are in 160 feet or more, when they’re dragging their nets a lot of times what I’ll do is I’ll pull up on their port or starboard side depending on which way the wind is blowing so my deckhand can throw cull as close to their scuppers of the shrimp boat, where they push their cull through, as possible that way it imitates the shrimp boat and we spread it out over the water as much as possible.”
Capt. Nate has been fishing mostly 12 hour trips, and catching anywhere from a dozen to twenty-five blackfin tuna. He has seen a few yellowfins, and feels that they should be showing up anytime soon. On tactics and techniques, Capt. Nate said,
“Splice on 2-3 foot piece of 50# fluorocarbon when the bites not quite right, use 6/0 circle hook, trying to hide the hook into the bait so they can’t see it. Chunks of bonito work good, especially if there is a lot of bonito. Just fillet the side of a bonito, take the skin off of it and cut out a 2 inch square chunk of bonito. Live perch work well also, if you can get a 3 inch live perch, the bonito will leave them alone and the tuna will come get them.”
Capt. Peter Young
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