Off to a worthy start here with long range opportunity at its finest. Between the grade of fish and breath taking scenery once here anglers feel as if they have traveled not only far in distance but back in time. Such magic does come at a cost; everything good always does. The best area of life attracting the fish also attracts the local thugs that are awe inspiring and maddeningly ruthless. Oddly enough the size average of the tuna at the island this season, that would normally be a straight plus, works against us in the highly competitive world beneath the surface here.

The bigger they are the harder they pull, and the longer they take to wrestle in. That’s not necessarily a good thing when the pain patrol is ready and waiting to take advantage of the situation. But there are ways to mitigate the losses, namely using heavy tackle and pulling like one’s life depends on it, and it does. In the end today we came out of the fray bruised but successful. A dozen of these beauties now reside in our RSW tank along with a handful of dandy yellowtail.

In flat calm conditions we settled in for the night getting all of our tackle back to full strength in preparation for round two tomorrow. As long as we can work here effectively we are in for the penny and the pound. We’ll see how it goes. Photo today features Royal Star angler Robert Ives with his 130 pound class yellowfin.