It was the stop of the year. An 8-hour drift on the 80- to 150-pound bluefin on the Ranger 85 that showed you never know what is going to pop up this offshore season.
It was Sunday when Dustin Tench swung the Ranger on a sonar school the likes of he hasn’t seen at all this year. Actually, never.
“We ended up having a 8 hour drift for 20 of these big bluefin,” he just told me via satellite phone. “Eleven are over 100 pounds, from 101 to 127, and the smallest is 80 pounds and the rest are up to 95.
“We landed one for every three we hooked and we had 1 to 6 and up to 9 going for the 8 hours,” said Tench.
The 3-day trip didn’t have long range style tackle, and most were stuck with 30- and 40-pound test.
“We saw fish over 150 blowing up and had some epic battles,” added Tench.
So what if the anglers had the tackle, like the big gear brought out on fall long range trips? “I think we could have easily got over 100 of those things,” said Tench.
Reception cut out on the sat phone and it was dead noise after that. Look for more on the catch of the season on the big bluefin later….
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