Oct. 2, 2011 – Svan Family Gets 3 Big Ahi!

The Svan family from Northern California are in town to support their son Eric who is participating in the 2011 Ford Ironman Triathlon this Saturday.  It’s a grueling 2 mile swim, 100 mile bike ride and a full marathon that only the top elite athletes in the world qualify for.  Eric plans on finishing in around 9 hours!  Eric chose not to fish today with us and trained instead.  We met at the boat early and headed south looking for the porpoise.  Today they were far, roughly 24 miles from the harbor.  We went right to the greenstick and started to work the pile.  There were dolphins everywhere and the pod appeared to be joining up with another one coming in from the outside.  I was marking a lot of ahi in the school but they didn’t bite right away.  We made several passes in the first few hours of the trip without a bite.  As I made a pass on the outside corner of the pile a big ahi pounced on one of the dangling squids.  Val was up first and although he had some leg problems did a great job fighting his first-ever ahi to the boat in just under 20 minutes.  It weighed 192lbs!  We quickly packed the fish in ice and headed back to the pile.  Again, it would take a few more passes to get our next bite.  Everyone was watching the baits behind the boat and witnessed another nice ahi come halfway out of the water and inhale the squid just a few yards behind the boat.  This time Bev was in the chair.  She also angled her first-ever ahi to the boat which weighed 126lbs!  We ran back to the front of the school and set up the greenstick again.  Next up was their son Vito who had planned the trip.  He was nice enough to let his parents catch the first two fish but really wanted to get one for himself.  We again worked the front part of the school and saw several ahi rolling on the surface feeding on really small baitfish.  As I bounced the squids along the surface an ahi made one of the slowest bites on the squids I have ever seen.  It ate the squid about as fast as a trout would sip a bug off the surface of a stream.  Vito went to work in the chair and landed his 122lb ahi in just about 15 minutes.