3-27-09 – How news travels fast

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It seemed the entire island had heard about our catch and everyone wanted in on the action.  Hal Westbrook and his family joined us for the day in hopes of getting in on the tunas before the bit the bite was over.  We made our way out to where we thought the school would be.  With a hunch the school would be in a different area we stayed clear of most of the boats searching for them.  The Long Ranger a good friend of ours had the same hunch and searched the same area we were in.  Within a mile of us the Long Ranger found the school.  We ran over to them and both of us set up as quickly as we could knowing the crowd of boats looking would find us soon.  Within 20 minutes of setting up we could see boats running full speed towards us.  With a little bit of luck and good positioning we got bit just in the nick of time.  As we pulled the 184 pound ahi over the side 10 boats made there way into the school.  Only moments before it was just us and the Long Ranger, now we could see 6 other boats setting their tuna sticks out.  We had a bait tank full of live Opelu (cigar minnows) so we opted to try and catch us them.  At the peek of crowdedness we could see 7 sticks and 10 other boats trolling or using live bait.  With so much pressure on the school only one other fish would get caught this day.  Though it was a frustrating day we still managed to catch a nice one.

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