Tomahawk ran an overnighter that departed 5/11 9pm with a very light load of 14 passengers. Capt. Jeff Spafford at the helm, Jake Bos running 2nd ticket, Mikey in the galley and Chapo commanding the deck. 

Sea conditions were lake-like the entire trip but dense fog and rain in the morning made it very difficult to find anything on the surface. Could not see more than a few meters past the bow for a couple hours at first light. Jeff stumbled upon a few yellowtail in the morning but no real signs of bluefin in the area. These yellows aren't the rats we've been seeing, most in the 8-10# range with a few smaller and few up to 12-13# mixed in. Not liking the area, Jeff moved on searching for better fishing still in beautiful flat seas.

He attempted to fly the kite and drag a couple yummy fliers as they moved, but the air was so still that the kite with a balloon still would not stay up. No worries...FOUND MORE PADDIES holding. The fishing was excellent on paddy yellows with easy limit style fishing. Unfortunately, it's still early in the season and some of anglers are still trying to get the rust off and there were several casualties. Good times being had by all though! They were finding massive schools of open water breezers of yellowtail. Just really fun fishing guys.

It was now getting later in the day and was time to point the bow for home and run to get back at our scheduled 7pm arrival....but Capt. Jeff liked the signs too much, they were metering bluefin and wanted to keep fishing. Sooooo, they took a vote and everybody agreed with an EXTENDED OVERNIGHTER at no extra cost to our lucky anglers. They ended up not getting back to the dock until after midnight!

On one of the last stops late day, one of our lucky lady anglers, Janell, hooked and landed an absolute slug yellow (legit 35#)....definite jackpot fish to that point! Just as the gaffs went in and the pic was taken there was a ruckus on the stern with a bunch of hooting and hollering. The crew run back with Janell's fish on gaff to find out "what's going on??". Capt. Jeff reports that he witnessed 150-200# bluefin had charged into the chum-line on that drift and were exploding on bait getting 6' of air....JUST PUTTING ON A SHOW in the stern!

Not expecting the big girls to crash the party, our anglers are fishing 30-40# test for yellows on this drfitvwhen two of them get picked up by these Volkswagen tunas.... You can guess what happened next....it was over as soon as it started. With drags completely buttoned down to sunset both anglers were spooled within a minute or so. 300+ yards of braid and topshot GONESVILLE. There was no stopping these fish on light line. That was last chance and now we HAD to head home. HEARTBREAKERS and the big yellowtail hangs on the win the jackpot!! (BTW, that's Janell's 2nd jackpot in a row on Tomahawk. She's our good luck charm!)

End game for 14 anglers, 50 decent quality yellows (lost just as many), several big bonito and 2 smoked drags on reels that need to be respooled with line. 

We are very proud to put a couple younger gents on their first ever yellowtail!!...and they got a handful each. They tried for the past 2 seasons on other boats but we took them to the promised land first.  Congrats guys!!  

We're looking to get another trip off the dock by mid-week to get back on these fish before our Charkbait sponsored open party trip departs next Friday. We still have a few spots left on that trip too, but check our schedule here Tomahawk Schedule for a new trip going up mid-week.