Tolaga Bay Bluewater Trip

[kjflyfish]

A small weather window opened up, so we headed to Tolaga Bay and went out to Tolaga Reef - comes up to 42 meters out of 450 meters. I think it's a guyot (flat-topped seamount). The sunrise was spectacular and we had pretty good vis, about 75-80 feet. There were hundreds of small kingfish and trevally around, but we held off for bigger game. We spent a lot of time trying to get some tuna or marlin action, but it wasn't to be. On our second anchor in about 60 meters, we stared a chum line and put out the flashers. I was in the water only a minute, loading my gun, when a school of small tuna came up and left just as quickly. That would be my only tuna sighting of the day, so we settled for a few trevally and kings.

[Wahooooo!]

It looks like you broke out the Paduak bluewater cannon.

[seahunter49]

What was the bottom like, did you get close to it? I guess the kings and the trevally were mid water?

[kjflyfish]

It looks like you broke out the Paduak bluewater cannon.

I was ready for anything! Here's a funny story - I did a dive in the middle of a huge school of kingfish and saw a really nice trevally. I hesitated and looked around for a better fish, then decided I would go ahead and shoot the trevally. I had to swing the gun around quite a bit to catch back up to the fish, and pulled the trigger with two bent arms and the butt right next to my face. End result - busted lip! :slap: I had forgotten all about what a 5-band bluewater gun feels like.

Seahunter, I never saw the bottom, even on some 70 foot dives. There was a constant slow current and the further down you dove, the worse the vis.

[kjflyfish]

I just found this pic - picture my right arm bent, with the gun swung to my side, and that will be pretty clost to the moment before I gave myself a fat lip shooting a trevally like John's (above). :rofl: