After much antecipation and a pearler of a weather forecast, MAXIMVS had a relatively late launch on Sunday. Myself and my bruder Manuel Jr. took our time to get things organized: buy the petrol, prep the boat, load the tackle and wait for the club's tractor.
[smg id=2631]
At 07:20 we were at the dock and to my horror witnessed the infamous Clube Naval slipway claim another victim: my jockey wheel was summarily decapitated when the winch hauled the trailer... the jockey wheel got stuck in one of the numerous holes at the bottom of the ramp and kaboom
[smg id=2629]
Oh well, will sort that one on our way back... The sea was flat as expected and turned a little bumpy as we cleared the sheltered waters of the bay and went past Xefina island. Nothing unconfortable...
[smg id=2630]
Water was cold (below 21o C and rised up to 21.4o C during the day) and our plan was to head NE (about 40 nm) and look for YFT. There have been reports of big YFT from the area and we wanted them! Go big or stay home and watch wicked tuna!
After an almost 2 h ride we got to a fishable area about 4 nm from the spot. Decided to start trolling and we set our spread. Two deep divers, two konas with strip baits and birds on the riggers and a cedar plug on the shotgun.
Trolled up, down, in and out till 12:30. Not a single bite!!!!! Radio was cracking with reports from people fishing Jeremias and B24 with plenty and big fish! Damn it, I was in the wrong place! I had no birds, no activity apart from 1000s of whales with calves!!!!
With the jockey wheel to sort, we had to make a decision to catch some fish and head home to organize the trailer. Didn't want to jam the ramp on a busy Sunday and I wasn't prepared to let MAXIMVS spend the nigh in the dock.
Made a call to go inshore to my couta grounds and try to score some fish for the table instead of going southeast.
Well, we managed to catch 2 couta on rappies. Also lost 2 of my favourite x-raps due to kinked wire!
[smg id=2632]
Cleaning the rods while Manuel was fighting his couta...
[smg id=2633]
Couta in the boat...
[smg id=2634]
Catch of the day...
Lesson to self: if you see a kinked wire don't hope/expect/pray for it to hold: re-rig! After the 2 couta on the boat and the 2 that we lost, at 14:00 decided to troll back till 15:00 and then head home. We had 2 strikes on the riggers .... the leader was all scratched so it could probably be sailies but even though we droped some line, etc... the hooks didn't stick. Oh well, next time.
Had to pull the boat with the Cruiser, which was a breeze... a good wash of both boat and vehicle was in order.
[smg id=2635]
All in all a great day on the water. Did 85.9 nm on about 91 L of juice.
Didn't get the

or the

, but I'm sure next time they will be a bit fatter!
Roll on summer!