3 yellowfin and 2 mahi at the hotdog

Well after doing a bit of exploring yesterday morning we checked The Washington and the good water we saw on the SST was there 74-76 degrees and very blue, but no whales and just not much life in around the 100 line and canyon. We did see mahi and I imagine there was billfish in 500-1000 fathoms in that blue water, and in poormans too. Next we moved north to the Rockpile and trolled a bit as a client who bought a report caught a wahoo there yesterday morning, we ended up picking off a nice stud 20-25lb mahi trolling near a thick weed line we passed but that was it. So then we ended up going to the hot dog where we knew for a fact our buddies were catching tuna, and sure enough that’s where they were! We hooked all 3 of ours on the troll, however lots of boats were chunking, it was pretty crowded, and from what we heard most boats only caught 1-3 tuna. We got one bite almost soon as we got there trolling around 130-2pm just outside the fleet of boats chunking maybe 1/2 mile from them, then caught skippys and a baby blackfin, but once the boats started to clear out from 330-630 the bite really turned on! We did try jigging/chunking for an hour with minimal effort cause we were marking the bait and fish consistently in the same area (pretty much where the fleet was) but not luck so we went back to trolling (which already worked once) at about 3 o’clock as some boats started to leave. One of the big advantages Jeff has over most captains is using his radar, he turned it on and started hunting for birds, and sure enough we found a pack of little tuna birds picking like crazy about 1/2 mile away from the fleet, and once we found those birds and stayed on em we’d get a bite almost every pass through them! The fish were missing the stingers and hooks for some reason on a lot of bites, and there were skippys and blackfin and mahi around too, but we think they were just not biting as aggressively. We also heard the best bite was on the greenstick which is also why we think it was mostly yellowfins just missing the hook when they streaked up from the bottom. We obviously were still happy to have the action we did and get the 3 yellowfin we did plus a couple bonus mahi, 2 of the 3 came between 3-7pm so it seems like an afternoon to evening bite for sure, although a few boats did catch early am as well. Tight lines if you're headed out today!