Black Hawk Down

Seriously...I've had a day like this on the mountain that I clearly remember.  Haines AK, April 2007, Tom Burt as our guide, good bro's, tow in landings from the heli on a rider only run (we were clients) and getting it done while Mr. Burt coached me thru a massive sluff chasing my ass down the hill on a radio, and Brad screaming bloody stoke on top of Tom's life saving words.  Some That's It, That's All type of shit.  Hands down my most memorable day EVER on the mountain.  We come in from that day, and our previous guide, who had been listening to where we were flying and riding comes out and walks up to us and says "don't ever come back here.  Ever.  You will NEVER be able to duplicate this day.  You'll try and fail.  Keep this as your memory of Haines AK."  Wow.

Now I've had that same AK day on the water fishing.  Fishing was something I grew up doing with my Pops and Grand Father.  Something we could all do, bond, spend time with each other and shit.  And I always enjoyed it.  Last year, Andrew our New England Rep suggested we do a dealer fishing trip with dealers, which was epic, so we repeated it this year, just as good.  Well New York Rep Dan, said "fuck that, I got a friend who owns a shop, who has a friend..." And so this trip out was spawn.
I flew in on Monday night, drove out to Sayerville, Long Island with Birds Eye Board Shop owner Steve, got a hotel and went to sleep.  Woke up at 4 A.M. (1A.M. Seattle time, wtf) and met Sammy from Bungers Sayerville.  Jumped into the truck and drove off to his buddy Bobbys.  Roll into Bobbys back yard and pass an commercial ice machine (hmmm), then a bunch of air conditioning units, and a bunch of expensive house shit.  Then realize we're in his back yard, a double gabled house, center unit pool, on the water (of Long Island) and there's this monster sport fishing boat glowing in the night up on a lift.  With another 15' Whaler parked next to it.  Next Level Type Shit going on here.  Clearly the owner isn't in the snowboard business...
Out of the house rolls your classic tv style New Yorker, Bobby.  Bobby is already on fire at 4:30A.M.  Pumped, ready to fish, tell storys, have a good time and drink a Tequila or two.  Bobby enjoys Patrone tequila, so we got a nice big bottle of that, and then some real Mexican Ass Tequila for him, Cazaldores.
As we walk to his boat it just keeps getting larger.  40' center console, Contender Sport Fishing boat with THREE 350 hp Yamaha's.  1,050 horse power.  Dude.  The thing had like 40 spots for fishing poles, out riggers, a toilet and a bench seat.  Simple, but EVERYTHING on the thing was the best.  I'm looking at this thing figuring it's at least a quarter of a million dollars.  Then Googled it and realized that my estimate was around $150G shy of what this machine would cost.  WHAT THE FUCK?!
The boats name was the Black Hawk, named after the nick name of an Osprey which is a fish killer.  Bobby had the boat, rods and reels and team shirts all logo'd up.  There was nothing skimped on with this operation. 
Mikey his buddy, an ex cop, now a resturant owner, comes out with us, super nice guy, funny cop style humor and the first thing I notice is the pistol on his belt.  "Sup with that Mikey?"  "In case we meet up with any pirates."  Ok.
So the plan was to go shark fishing, like an hour and a half off shore roughly 70 miles out at sea.  That would mean we were gonna be doing like 50mph on the ocean, for an hour and a half?  Yep.  Steve, Dan and I lay down on these boat style bean bag chairs and make the journey.
Boom, where in the shark fishing spot.  Bobby says "ok, we got another option here boys.  First off, you guys comfortable?  We're 70 miles out at sea, but don't worry, we got one of them life rafts with gps, satalites and all that shit in case shit gets rowdy."  Cool.   "Secondly, we can fish these sharks which are cool and all but if your game, we can go out to this spot, Toms Canyon, and fish TUNA.  I got a feeling it's gonna be good."  The spot for tuna is another hour and a half away though.  Like 130 miles off shore from Long Island, on the Contintal Shelf and by a giant meteor hole in the ocean.  "You guys decide, I don't care.  But...big game tuna hunting is unbelievable.  These things fight like nothing else out there, and we're gonna be way the fuck out there so we'll see some cool ass shit."  Off we go.  Sleep time some more in the back of the boat. 
We get to the spot by 9AM ish, and reel in a dorado right away, then another one, then one more.  3 pack right out of the gate.  Gonna be a good day, you can feel it.  Bobby KNOWS whats up.  All the rigs are out now, 12 total lines with lures, mirrors and some voodo type fishing shit are all swimming in sycronicity behind the boat and it begins.  Fish on.  Bobby sets the hook, tells me to get the belt and get ready for a battle.  "You going to fucking war kid!"  This thing was a monster, 60+ pounds at least.  I'd love to claim it in the 80+, cause I picked this fucker up and stumbled, but I'm trying to factor in the ocean, fish skin, lack of grip into the whole deal and keeping it a mellow 60+ pounds.  But it was huge, heavy, gave the biggest fight ever and awesome looking.
Soon after we see dolphins.  Tons, hundreds, maybe even thousands of them.  Jumping, chasing fish, splashing, swiming with the boat.  So freaking cool.  And to top that, every time we were trolling with them, we'd reel in a tuna.  That led to the next 5 hours of fishing side by side with the dolphins.  It was incredible.  They never got old watching them either.  I've never seen that many, doing all that shit for so much, that far out in the ocean.  It was crazy. 
At the very latest, we had to be out of there by 4PM, as that gave us the 3 hours we needed to get back to Sayerville.  So instead of leaving any spare time, just in case, we left at 4.  Half way in, we see some fish, stop, thow out a line, catch nothing and take off.   Clunk.  Third engine, something was done, like the out drive or tranny or something.  But we were a good 70 miles from the coast.  So up the engine comes and off we go on two engines, only 700hp now.  7:20PM shows up and were a little behind schedule and it's getting dark.  We finally hit the coast but got a good 30 min still to go to navigate the shallow bay, inlets and what not when the gps and engine number 1 die.  So, a 30 min cruise in, easy style now ends up taking another 1.5 hours, at 4mph, with people a little tense. 
Finally back at the dock around 10:30PM, we start to unload, clean and take care of shit.  And by midnight we were off to find a place to rest our head with huge smiles on our face.

The day turned out just like Bobby said in would that morning, "Big water fishing for game fish is like war.  It's a battle out there, and there's gonna be casualties.  But we never give up, and we always win."
7 tuna, 3 mahi, 1 bonita, a thousand dolpins, 1 whale, a couple flying fish, 2 engines, 400 gallons of fuel, gps system, broken spreader, broken rod and two downed bottles of Patron.  I'd say there we're some casualties of war.  The war on fun.
And we tried to help pay for this too, but Bobby wasn't having it.   Dude was pure entertainment ALL DAY, knew his shit better than any captain I've been out with, was patient, taught you shit, explained the who, what and why of his methods and honestly, I think he had a better time doing all that, than any one of us had fishing.  People say money can't buy you happyness, but I'll tell you what...Captain Bobby of the Black Hawk is a pretty happy guy, that certainly knows how to spread the smiles.  And to that, I raise a cup of Patron.
Thank you Sammy, Dan, Steve, Mike and Frankie for one incredible ass day of fishing that I don't know can ever be topped.
But that doesn't mean we won't be back, cause Bobby didn't tell us NOT to come back....

4:30AM view of the Black Hawk

What 50mph looks like sitting on a bean bag seat at the back of the boat, on the open ocean, with a G of engine juice screaming behind you.

First fish of the day, Dorado/Mahi Mahi.

Ice, sauce and Mahi.

Flipper came out to see us.

And brought his friends.  Like 500 or so of them.

Steve

First Tuna, I got to reel this beast in too.  60+ pounds of fish.  Mike the body builder from Tosh.0 would say "you admiring bro?  You admiring my fucking fish?  Huh!"

"Die mother fucker!"

DTM

Tuna on

The reason you have more than one engine when you go 130miles off shore?  In case one breaks down, you don't end up dieing out there.  In our case, 2 out of the 3 died, and the GPS.  Thank GOD for Bobby, Mike and the tequila.

This was like doing sets of curls holding this thing up.  Good thing that I'm doing roids these days and this shit wasn't heavy to me.   But you pussy non lifting faggots reading this wouldn't be able to lift this fish.  Just saying.  Hit the gym bro.  You got bitch tits.  Now what? 

Deadliest catch

Team Black Hawk

Casualties of WAR with the Ocean