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Carolina Blue(fin) Christmas Trip: December 22, 2004 
  Video Clips:
(Morehead City, North Carolina) With the approach of bad weather and 10-12 foot
seas anticipated Captain Tommy Fletcher told us we would We left Big Rock Landing at 5:30 am aboard the Ashley Renaie, a 52 foot custom built Jarrett Bay with the trademark Carolina Flair bow (Fletcher has custom built several of the Carolina-style fishing yachts found at Big Rock including his own Ashley Renaie). Within a hour we were in the fishing grounds (some 10 or so miles offshore) and we began to troll horse ballyhoos rigged with a hood and a skirt. By 8:30 we had out first hook-up and Big Tuna Bill was fighting a 300-plus pound Bluefin. After releasing the big fish we trolled
for another hour and got a double hook up on the Avet reels and
Seeker rods we brought from San Diego (which we had included
in the trolling pattern). The water is shallow here (less than
a hundred feet) so the captain and deckhand (Chris) expressed
some Half an hour later the Avet T-Rex was hooked up again on a 200# fish. Bill's son Stephen picked up the Seeker/Avet combo and fought the fish standing up and without a belt to the boat. The fish measured 71.5 inches and so was a legal fish to keep (a slot limit of 47" to 72" is in effect for these fish and only one per boat per day is allowed). That night we seared half a dozen thick Bluefin Tuna steaks in garlic-butter. This time it didn't matter too much to him that he caught the smallest of the Giants that day! Not a bad day's work! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
   
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have to surrender our second
day of fishing. Usually this is a disappointing announcement.
But after landing 
four huge Bluefin
tuna in less than four-and-half hours we had nothing to complain
about.
concern about getting
spooled on the smaller reels. Both fish ran and Mark Craft (from
Kenansville, NC) grabbed the Duke Blue Avet 50 Open Top "San
Diego Special" with150# Spectra
and 100# Maxima attached to a Seeker 6463 XXXH and Charles Whitman
(from Cedar Grove, NC) grabbed the other Seeker rod (a 6463 XXXXH)
with an Avet T-Rex Quad spooled with 250# Spectra and 200# Izorline.
The fight was on and both anglers fought the Giants standing
up (and without belts) for 15 minutes or so until the fish forced
them into chairs. The boat worked Charles' fish since it was
giving the Avet T-Rex a work out and it looked like the larger
of the two Bluefin. When the fish was brought to the boat it
was measured at 88 inches (450#). Mark's fish was smaller at
84 inches and 425#.