Originally Posted by
todd_brooks555
That just crazy! Metalslinger (Jack) said the other day he was afraid to go tuna fishing because he'd heard it ruins you for all other fishing. If thats typical tuna fishing which I'm sure its not, I can see how that would make some other fishing seem boring.
I always liked this version of how it ruins you.
It starts with a steelhead or a feisty little coho. Next you find yourself trolling under a bridge with 500 of your closest friends and guides waiting for chinook bigger than your net to crush your spinning herring.
The crowds get old so you buy your first really "bigger" boat and head across the bar. Danger and daring await on the brine and leviathans that part 30lb like it was floss. Stay inside 100 fathoms and you might be okay but the horizon beckons and the radio squawks with tales of pelagic monsters and screaming drags and shouts of "double, triple!".
Next the tackle you have painstakingly assembled looks weak and paltry. Your reels have (shudder) "levelwinds" and drags that twist instead of levers like an emergency brake. You realize that all your ABUs and Shimanos together wouldn't get one Accurate, maybe an Avet and you suddenly realize you would gladly make the trade. Rods that are light as a feather and balance in your hand like a wand are replaced with rods you grab with your fist and gaffs to match.
Over the course of time you position yourself and your tackle to maximize time on the big blue. You scrimp wheedle and connive yourself into a boat with enough length and breadth and machismo to tackle the bar and beyond. You become a weather witchdoctor, studying the longrange/shortrange/raw data, trends and troughs until you can predict with some certainty your chances of getting your saltwater fix.
And then it hits you: The really big fish are here, but the ocean is not your friend. She bucks and boils and blows you back to the dock. The ten days you scraped together to feed your addiction becomes two on the salt, two blown off and six days putzing around tied to the dock, clamming and crabbing a poor substitute for the screaming drag and calls for "GAFF-GAFF" that you have been dreaming of.
You realize that 45 degrees north latitude is just too far north for anything like friendly seas on a regular basis. You read somewhere of 18 sails to the boat in a day and dorado and marlin and pargo and tuna in numbers too large to imagine in sizes that eat albies for breakfast.
And so you find yourself, 9 degrees north latitude........
Float from the bank and drift from the boat.
Eagle Creek Fisher
Insane tuna action!
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