July 22nd

The Shogun crew and research scientists spent a day looking hard for small bluefin tuna. We saw remarkable schools of collectable size bluefin tuna in the 10 to 15 lb. range, but we were unable to get a single fish to bite. We had a fantastic film day for our Ocean Futures colleagues filming a bluefin movie on the Shogun for the Cousteau team. It was an Audubon special- bluefin and a few albacore schools, mola, blue whales, Risso dolphins,white sided dolphins, albatross, storm petrels, terns and phalleropes. At least for the film team we put some serious hours in the tape bank. We're pulling together the best hypotheses as to why it's hard to get those small bluefin to bite- you can be sure we're moving to the lightest line we have. One issue going on is the tunas are feeding on anchovy and sauries- which are very small compared ot the sardines - so we're trying swim baits, anchovy,small sardines and iron jigs. Tomorrow should be the day! And hopefully we'll deploy our new miniature archival tags in these adorable sized bluefin!