[Saltywater tackle]

An amazing day on the water started with a wide open topwater bite!
Nick Bowles ( Ocean Active) from Dubai, Chris Teng ( Hot’s field tetster) from California, Mark Tamim from Texas, Jason Ward (Siren Lures) along with 7 anglers from Brooklyn and New Jersey shared their fantastic day on the water.
We chartered Tuna Duck and God Speed and we are going to let the pictures justify the talking this time,
Tackle used:
Popping Rods: Race Point 200 & 250, Tokara 60, Hot’s Wei World BT 732 (prototype), Spinal,
Jigging Rods: MC Works, Valley Hill Mogi special and Maori Spirit, Hot’s One Pitch Slider 56XH. Saltywater OBX 400G, Carpenter OH 55XH,
Lures: Siren Lures,Ocean Thoroughbred, Moutoukenmaru, TB Lures, Carpenter Gamma.
Jigs: Shout Shab Shab, Stay, Width, DeepLiner VB, FB, Hot’s Drift Tune.
Line: Shout Sasame, Sunline, Varivas.
Leader: Saltywater Twisted leader, Yozuri HD Carbon 150lb and 130LB
Enjoy the pictures and we will update you tomorrow !!

Tight lines
Sami & Paul

 

[Saltywater tackle]

more pictures

 

[Saltywater tackle]

more pictures

 

[Saltywater tackle]

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[Saltywater tackle]

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[anth0nyg]

Awesome pictures. Amazing how far tackle and spinning rods have come.

 

[Da Skiff]

Awesome

I'm excited. I have the duck booked for thurs. never caught one on the jig. Just bought a new black hole. Hopefully I can pop my cherry. Also will be my first time on the tuna duck. Great photos

 

[hattrickll]

Simply awesome, great pictures and report.:thumbsup:

 

[M.T Nest]

nice job

I can't wait to get down there in the next 2 weeks!!!!

 

[tunavet]

Awesome work fellas! I am so jealous! Great pictures. Hope you beat 'em up today too.

 

[paul708]

great report.
thanks for posting

 

[tunaman]

Congrats on the action, I'm jealous.

You said they're how big?

 

[Khalid]

RP!

look at those racepoints in action. Amazing.

 

[The Trolling Stone]

Wow...I've got to get down there ASAP...great photos, guys...I've fished on Godspeed...he put us on the fish, too!

 

[sami g]

2 out of 8 today we landed an 81 inche fish on topwater and had a nice 64 inches on the jig! I guess our ladies wished us a happy Valentine

 

[Lockedup]

Great photos and trip. Just a thought, why don't you guys ditch the center treble hook, the trailer is enough to hold them. Makes for a much easier and safer release and doesn't slice the **** out of these fish or rip their eyes out.

 

[Saltywater tackle]

The keeper on sami's boat is a big eye weighing 165lb and we had a 65" that we kept and a 85" released.

 

[stripah]

Great photos and trip. Just a thought, why don't you guys ditch the center treble hook, the trailer is enough to hold them. Makes for a much easier and safer release and doesn't slice the **** out of these fish or rip their eyes out.

I have to agree with this statement. Looking at those pics some of those fish are sliced to crap from all the extra treble hooks. That's wrong. There is absolutely no reason to use those style hooks with this kind of fishery. You could use a single hook at the end of the plug hands down. I don't want to take away from your Post but seeing what I'm seeing here in the pics is a little disturbing to say the least.

 

[marktd]

What a GREAT trip!

Just wanted to post to say that this was one of the most AMAZING fishing trips I've ever been a part of in all my years of fishing. I was fortunate to be a part of this trip with Sami Ghandour from Saltywater Tackle and a group of 8-10 superb anglers from all over the world. What a great group of guys from all walks of life connected by a common bond -- our love and passion for saltwater fishing. As much as the fishing was world class, the time spent hanging out with and getting to know this group of great guys made the trip even more special. Words alone simply don’t do it justice.

And many thanks to Sami and everyone else who helped make the arrangements and organized everything for us. I don't have too much more to add to the reports already posted about the world class fishing we experienced (the photos speak for themselves), but as many of you know there is much, much more that goes on behind the scenes to pull off successful destination trips with large groups of anglers, many of whom have never met before, and all I can say is that Sami and his team know how to do it right!

I fished on the Tuna Duck with Capt. Dan Rooks and mate Mike -- two of the best in the business, without a doubt. By my count, we hooked 21 fish on jigs and topwater over the two days and landed 7. Most of the bluefin were 80-86 inches, approx 300-375lbs, with a couple of 60-65" fish mixed in. I hooked 4 fish myself and landed 2 -- a 84" bluefin on topwater (released) and a 64” chunky bigeye on a jig that went about 170lbs, which we kept for the table. It was, without a doubt, some of the sickest fishing I've ever witnessed. At times we had 3-4 guys hooked up simultaneously. When we came upon pods of busting fish we usually ended up with 2-4 fish hooked up. Monday we had 300-400lb bluefin balling bait on the surface around us for hours it seemed.

All fish over 72" were tagged and released with tags through John LoGioco's "Save the Bluefin" project (check out the great work John does if you're not already familiar with it). John just notified me this morning that the 85.5" fish we tagged may be the largest yet that he's aware of using NOAA tags! As for this class of fish, Capt. Rooks believes these same fish have been showing off North Carolina the last few years and they just keep getting bigger and stronger! Hooking, fighting and landing one of these brutes on jigging or popping gear is the true test of endurance and skill (believe me though, there were some rods passed around at times!). My weapons of choice for the trip were a Race Point 250 popping rod coupled with my trustworthy Stella 18000SW with 550 yards of 100# JB hollow core on a Deep max spool. For jigging, I used the MC Works Southern Blue 578FG / Stella 20000SW and a Valley Hill Exploder Maori Spirits w/an Avet HX Raptor. Hot jigs were the Deep Liner 250g and Drift Tune 280g.

Can’t wait to meet up with this same group for another trip sometime soon!

Mark DeAngelis, Holmdel NJ

 

[Saltywater tackle]

Hi Guys,
more pictures from our last day, we went 2 out of 8 on our boat and the other group went 2 out of 2, enjoy the pictures!

Tight lines
Sami