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Xiao Mu Ji Fishing Reports 08

XiaoMuJi — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 08:48:58 CST

Maiden Voyage for the "XIAO MU JI" 2008 Season

Well, Sunday, May 18th, 2008, Cody, my wife Nancy and I took a spin out to the south side of Montauk off the Radar Tower in 65' to 70' of water for some fluke fishing. We had a near full moon and high winds that built all day. In the morningthe wind out of the west was around 10-15 knots, and built to near 20+ knots by noon. We had two hours of the end of incoming left for the morning so we drifted from West to East at around 1.5 to 2.0 knots. We iused squid strips on tandem hook fluke rigs with flor. green 4" squid skirts and tipped with large sand eels. Nancy had the 1st throwback at around 19" , then I got a 20.7" keeper and four more shorts in the 18-20" range. Cody finally got going and had four fish all shorts in the same range.

The tide went slack around 10-10:30AM then finally started moving around 11AM changed. Donald Wu fishing abord the "Nice Day Too" a 55' aluminum catamaran party boat run by Tommy . Donald called me and said they had nothing but dogfish and a few keeper Black Sea Bass on a 60' hump of rough bottom just a mile south west of where we were fishing. By the end of the day, they never got a fluke and only managed another couple of keeper bass.

The Lighthouse rips held small keeper size Stripers for those who could take the torture of jigging wire line and bucktails. That's not for me! I'll wait till the night time ell bite is on. In the mean time, we will go North to the Race, Sluiceway and Gut for bass at night on bucktails and three way rigs.

I can't wait till the next Warm Core Eddy comes roaring into the Northeast Canyons so I can go get some fresh tuna for the pallet. Tightlines, Till the next Tide!

By the way, we will be taking our 1st military guess from our participation of "TAKE A VET FISHING" program I joined last year. It should be a good time for all.

July 2008 Monster Montauk Stripers

Well its the upcoming full moon on wed. night of next week that has the tides ripping strong and baitfish being tossed and tumbled for eager stripers to suck them up.

My plan was that my long time fishing partner Alfred was to arrive at the boat by 8PM. We would go right out go check out this little bump that is just a short run from the inlet for the outgoing tide. If there were no fish, then we were going to come back to the dock, sleep till 1AM and fish 1AM-6AM for monster stripers on the incoming tide off the light house...

Well that was the plan....and as you know plans are made to changed or broken. We arrived at my little honey hole as guess who was home???
There was all type of bait showing on the screen, I don't know if it was squid, but whatever it was, there was plenty of it. THis is the known recipt for big stripers. This spot has produced my 51.5 pounder, thiry fish over 40-pounds and hundreds of 30-pound stripers in the past three seasons for Cody, Al and myself. We have also lost giant stripers well beyond the 50# mark here.

1st drift, Al gets a shot and nails a 20+ pound bass...good sign, I then get a shot and miss the fish. We run back up on the drift and drop our eels down again, I get the fisrt shot and blow it again, Al gets a shot and blows his fish. Back up on the drift, I shorten the drift to give me just a hundred yards before the piece and the game was on.

Drift after drift we keep getting fish or shots. I realize that we are blowing somany shots because the fish are not instantly inhailing the eels, but playing with them. We discuss the method and start to let the fish eat the eels longer before setting the hook. THis is unusal for Montauk, here we usually just instantly set the hook.

I get a mid 30s on the next drift. THe action slows a little and I decied to keep another couple of spots honest. So we run south and make twenty drifts between three spots with only one hit.

Now honestly, we like incoming much better and outgoing for big fish...that is... except on this little piece we were first working. Now its 1AM and we decied to go back and work the end of the tide on our honey hole then snooze for an hour as the tide changes then finish up the incoming up by the lighthouse.

Alfred says "You know there could be a 50-60 or even 70 pounder sitting on this piece just waiting to eat our eels" I know Al, this place is always great the latter in the tide it gets. We start the drift and I get a big fihs on, I an feel its big with sholders but never got a solid hook in him. We go back up on the drift and this time on the same drift line on Northstar 951, Al says " I am getting a hit, I am letting him eat it" "IAM IN!!!!!" Wow its a big fish!!!

I place my rod in the holder leaving it our for a second cow and get the big net to assist and net Al's nice fish. Even though were in shallow water 24-27' the fish take some monster runs hard against his tight drag. Back and forth, give and take this is a real cow. I finally get to see the silver silloute of the COW and I get totally STOKED! ITS BIG, REAL BIG!
I finally get to scoop it up and I can't just lift the net and fish into the boat...its BIG!! I use two hands and over the rail she comes.

WOW, wat a cow, the head and gut on this fish made me easily think it was mid to high fifties...its big and both Al who has a 60.25# and 50.5# striper with multiple high 40-49 pounders under his belt as well as my 55 and 51.5 and four 49-49.5# stripers under mine....its just plain BIG!

We did some video on my camera (but no IR illuminator) since the only thing missing, was my son, Cody, who immediately got a telephone call as well as my wife at 1:30AM to tell of ongoing success and the big fish on the deck. I took some pictures and video and back we went to work, four more fish into 35# hit the deck. THen we went to the light house at 2AM and started fishing three incoming spots, two to three drifts per spot with not hits, runs, or errors and at 2:30AM we called it a night.

With Fifteen big cows under our belt, it was a great night of typical Montauk striper fishing!

Back at the dock we immediately weighted the big female...the dock scale says it 50 on the button, I can't beleive that its at least 53-55lbs, It just seems very big, but the scale doesnt lie, OK off to bed, at 5:30 AM the dock opens, we get up put her on the digital scale and she tops at 49.60, SHit! so close yet so far, We are real guys who don't fool ourselves and a 50 is a 50 and a 49 is just a forty! Got to be true with yourself first! Well Al's birthday is tomorrow so here was his 51 year birhday bass! Good going Al! and it is the way its been for 31 years we have fished to gether, whenever we get into big fish, he is always rigt next to me. Sorry Cody missed this night, it was a great one for the memory books!

Home

XiaoMuJi — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 08:39:14 CST

R.I.P Marty L. McMillan

11/30/08

Welcome to the offical website of the " XIAO MU JI" ..........Pronounced>>>(She-Oh-Moo-Gee),

She is named after my wife's chinese nickname, means "little female chicken"!

Home of our 30' Custom Aluminum Fishing Battleship built by www.Ironwoodboats.com

Hope You Enjoy the site!

FROM SWORDFISH TO SHARKS AND LOTS AND LOTS OF TUNA... WE FISH HARD! ...REAL HARD!

AND WE LOVE BIG MONSTER STRIPERS AT NIGHT!

IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN AN ALUMINUM BOAT BUILT LIKE A BATTLESHIP,
visit : http://www.ironwoodboats.com/index.php

AND IF WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE BENIFITS OF ALLOY, VISIT THE AUTHORITY ON ALLOY BOATS>>>
Visit: http://www.aluminumalloyboats.com

POWER BY VOLVO PENTA MARINE D6-310hp Diesel Duo Prop Sterndrive>>>
Visit: http://www.volvo.com/NR/exeres/514D1625-5FBA-44A3-AEEF-1218FCDB12F6.htm

XIAO MU JI is docked at the Westlake Fishing Lodge and Marina

West Lake Drive
Montauk, NY 11954
631-668-5600
Fax: 631-668-5614

HERE ARE SOME OF OUR VIDEOS, ENJOY THEM! NOW AVAILABLE - HD AND 5.1 SURROUND SOUND DVD'S FOR $10
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FISHING VIDEOS:
08/2007 - XIAO MU JI TUNA TRIP
09/2007 - XIAO MU JI TUNA TRIP 2
11/2007 - XIAO MU JI in ROUGH SEAS
07/2007 - OAK BLUFFS MONSTER SHARK TOURNAMENT
7/2006 - MAHI MAHI AROUND THE LOBSTER POTS
SUPERBIRDS
SUPERBIRDS 2
07/2008 - MONTAUK STRIPED BASS AND FLUKE TRIP
07/19/2008 - MONTAUK ALBEMARLE BREAKDOWN
07-27/08 - MONTAUK STRIPED BASS WITH ALFRED
08/01/08 - TUNA TRIP WITH THE BOYS FROM MONTANA(400LB BLUE MARLIN)
08/10/08 - WEST ATLANTIS TRIP (WHITE MARLIN)
11/08/08 Blackfish Video
TRADITIONAL BOW HUNTING VIDEOS:
09/2007 - MONTANA ELK HUNT
BRITISH COLUMBIA MOOSE HUNT
MONTANA TRADITIONAL SPOT AND STALK BEAR HUNT

white marlinXIAO MU JI & CODY'S 1st WHITE MARLIN

XiaoMuJi — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 20:17:11 CDT

Our trip to the EDGE was set for West Atlantis, 95-NM Southeast from Montauk. At quarter to 2AM Sunday, morning Alfred, John and Bob arrived and with my first mate/son Cody we left Montauk. Headed southeast @ 25-knots with dual radar running and flat calm seas. At 6AM we were 8-NM short of the Southwest corner of W.A.

[img]http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa308/Ironwoodtuna/AugustWhiteMarlinTrip2008002.jpg[/img]

We dropped in and set up our hungry spread, 3-Rasata Squid bars on the corner & center riggers, 6-Lollypop Spreader bars on the transom flats and long outriggers, and 2-Black Bart chuggers on the short outriggers. By 7:30AM we had raised two White Marlins but never came tight.

Cody on the watch:
[img]http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa308/Ironwoodtuna/AugustWhiteMarlinTrip2008021.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa308/Ironwoodtuna/AugustWhiteMarlinTrip2008033.jpg[/img]

We trolled east to the pocket and worked the east wall for a couple of hours, then turned west and trolled west and north till noon. With the seas so flat, I even ran my home made YFT greenstick bird without any baits on it as a chase teaser and put my spread out further than I usually run it trying to get a bite.
[img]http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa308/Ironwoodtuna/AugustWhiteMarlinTrip2008009.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa308/Ironwoodtuna/AugustWhiteMarlinTrip2008011.jpg[/img]

While trolling I came aross this alloy boat working the area, I tried like hell to raise the guy on the radio and tell him about AAB but instead all I fgot was a couple of photos. I am not sure what hull it is, can anyone tell???

[img]http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa308/Ironwoodtuna/AugustWhiteMarlinTrip2008017.jpg[/img]
Lots of giant, I mean giant turtles around, must have seen a dozen or more throught the day.

[img]http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa308/Ironwoodtuna/AugustWhiteMarlinTrip2008015.jpg[/img]

We were 16NM from the pocket when in a conversation with Jeff, the Captain of the "CRACK OAR" a 47-Ocean out of Westerly R.I. Jeff said he had a large pod of whales and bait but no bites yet. We had zip so we pulled and ran the 16-NM to the pocket where we came in and jigged in the deep bait with no takers. We setup the spread again and worked the same area that we had been in this morning.

"CRACK OAR" had run from Hydrographers and worked his way West down the 100-fathom line past Veatches, East Atlantis and ended up with a couple of white marlins during saturday and a single BigEye on the chunk saturday overnight at West Atlantis. On sunday just after we arrived from his call, Jeff grabbed three Albies 30-50lbs then he took off at 2PM on sunday after he called us in.

We had no knockdowns till 6PM when the center rigger popped with a bird and Green Machine, but never came tight. I jumped to the transom and started jigging the line, I got to hits figuring it was small skippies of something. I kept jigging and then watched a marlin sword come up and slash at the lure. I kept jigging then it happened, he got all pissed off and smashed the lure hard, so hard the line dug in and broke my skin but not before I had set the hook on him.
Cody jumped to the rod and started the battle. It was short and sweet when the little Whiite Marlin came to my hand whee I removed the hook, we took some pictures and video of it, measured it at 42" fork of tail to lower jaw. Maybe 30lbs, a cute little White for both Cody and the XIAO MU JI.
We worked whales, pods of porpise and nothing. 9PM we pulled the lines and had to make a choice.

[img]http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa308/Ironwoodtuna/AugustWhiteMarlinTrip2008028.jpg[/img]

On my Garmin real time weather XM satellite unit showed a big storm coming. It soon was upon us and a huge light show was taking place to the west of us. This storm concerned me because of the huge amount of lightning that the unit showed. I watched the track and made the call to run the 36NM to the west to sit on the edge of the Tails canyon and swordfish for the night. As we ran the storm track changed to the east and befor long the storm became a 400NM long x 80NM wide lightning storm that was moving towards us at 25-MPH. That ment 8-10 hours of lightning to sit through if it came east over us at the Tails.

The vertical lightning strikes were so large around that they must have been 100-yards across, then as they made contact with the ocean, the sky crackeled with spider bolts of lightning in 30-miles in each direction. SCARY!
10NM from the Tails, I had had enough and thougt that I was at the point to turn and try to outrun the storm. As I headed Northeast, the satellite unit told me that I should head to Martha Vineyard to safe haven where we would sit it out till morning. I ran 25NM towards the Vineyard and then thought I could cut infront of the storm and make it to either B.I. or Montauk. Running in seas that were still calm, I made it 70NM at 24-25knots then the wind and seas began to build I was still able to run 20-22knots with quartering/following seas. THe light show was to my port and coming on fast, but the speed of the XIAO MU JI and dual radar got us to port before it did at midnight.

I made the call to run because it was a lightning storm, if it was just heavy rain I would have sat it out, I know it was a wise call to run. I was exhusted, said good by to the boys and Cody and I hit the sack. At around 2AM or so all hell broke loose. Lightning, and rain so heavy that I thought a fire truck had their hoses pointed at the boat. I awoke to high winds and rough seas when we went out to get Nancy some sea bass for dinner. Got a couple of fish and headed home.

[img]http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa308/Ironwoodtuna/AugustWhiteMarlinTrip2008043.jpg[/img]

Here is two sea bass in Nancy's deep dish, just after I pushed the skin off, then remembered to take a photo for you,

[img]http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa308/Ironwoodtuna/AugustWhiteMarlinTrip2008045.jpg[/img]
Here is the remains after dinner.

[img]http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa308/Ironwoodtuna/AugustWhiteMarlinTrip2008047.jpg[/img]
Video and marlin photos to come from Cody soon...
Slow canyon fishing right now, All in all it was pretty dead from all the boat reports from the Tails to Hydros, but the little White Marlin was cool, just not eatible! Marty & Cody

XIAO MU JI's FIRST BLUE MARLIN

XiaoMuJi — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 23:28:34 CDT

07/30/08 till 08/01/08

What a trip!

My hunting buddies Heath and Brendan Cooper from Montana showed up at JFK on Wed. at 5:30PM and we headed to the boat. We arrive 8:30PM put 22-bushells of ice and salted it down, got 4-giant Swordfish squids and four flats of butterfish for the night bite.

We left Thursday morning at 2AM only to get 20-NM south of the Point to run into a giant stormcell full of lightning and turned around and went back to wait it out. 6AM topped of the tank again and headed off, we arrived at the Tails (Block canyon) 68-NM to the south.

Found Minkie whales, porpoise and skippies working in 600-1200ft of water on 78-79 degree water. Put out 7-Spreader bars and 4-BigEye kona head Black Bart lures. We worked an underwater mountain that juts up to some 700ft in 1,200foot of water called by Tred Barta my Mentor, Big Eye Mountain and the ajoining bumps for nearly four hours with multiple skippies and just one small Yellowfin, we released.

Worked the area till 2PM then started woring the 100-fathom line to the west towards the Moddle Ground and Dip. At 5PM we were around the Middle grounds and pulled and ran to the Dip. We found large schools of skippes breaking the surface and caught ten or so, along with another 5-6 yellow fins, only one barley being a keeper. at 9PM pulled the lines and run south to 1400 feet of water where we setup for the night.

Took a skippie and fileted it into shark bait put out a mackeral chum as well as put ot a big swordfish squid down around 300ft. Drifted all till 1AM around 4-NM to the south then the tide changed and we drifted 5-NM to the Northeast in heavy winds and rought 5-7 foot seas. By 5AM it started to finally calm down and we had no takers for our efforts.

Sunrise and the lines were back in as we worked the Dip then up north onto the Flats in 320ft of water to the northeast by the middle grounds. More skippies and another 5-6 yellowfins all but one released.

Then it happened, I was tired and so I laid down to take a nap, then as I dozed off, Heath yells MARTY!, a really big fish just took the lure, as I jump up the deck the Altechnous 50 Single speed with 150-yard top shot of Brilliant Blue 80# Momoi mono and 700-yards of 80# Jerry Brown Hollow Core kevlar line. was screaming! And I mean Screaming. Heath said "I can't handle that thing you take it!" Say no more, I got my belt on as it was ***Game On!!!! for me just a couple of weeks before my birthday.

I get the rod into my harness and clip in. THe fish is just greyhounding out the line, them she came up and made a few straight up tail walks, then dove into the water where she then porpoised four more times going faster than the boat and she now 300-yards out and 100-yards in front of the boat while my line was in a giant loop still going straight out the transom. She is around 300+ pounds.

Cody ran the boat like a professional captain with hundreds of marlin under his belt. I was so happy that he drove the boat and did just an outstanding job manuvering, both forward and reversing to get line back on my reel.
Cody had also setup his old camera on a tripod up on the tower with a wide angle lens and his new High Definnition cam corder was in the hands of Brenden. And I gotta say, Brenden did an outstanding job recording the entire fight and very little editing will need to be done. Brendan at the last five minutes of the fight got up on the big cooler and got some great video while Cody's tower camera's wide angle lens caught other great shots of the big girl.
I really put the heat to her in the first 1/2 hour of the battle, and within one hour, we had the old bluelady all lite up and the leader on the rod three times. As she passed back and forth across the transom, she was longer than the width fo the transom, she stayed 6' down with my lure leader just coming in and out of the water as she wandered back and forth. Finally, I handed the rod to Greg Kaplar and I grabbed the Black and Purple Black Bart lure 400# 6' leader and with her giant tail out of the water she swooshed her giant 3' wide tail, buried her head and I held her back with all my might. POP! the leader let go ....She was a caught and released, 1st Blue Marlin for me and my XIAO MU JI!
Everything I have done to prepare for this moment worked, the chinese finger loop slices on the hollowcore, the loop knot from the mono to the hollowcore loop, the crimps on the lure, and leader, the wind-on leader, the main line, the everything held and made me proud of myself. I worked my entire life for this moment, and it all came together and she still swims free.

These first three shots I took by snap shot of the TV screen watching the raw, uncut video, they are grainy, I'll try to get better ones...

The upside down flag of a caught and released Blue Marlin, great day it was as the sun fell into the sea...

Cody handling the boat, my Montana boys getting a trip of a life time even without the big yellowfins and Bigeyes that we were hunting making it into our spread. We fished til 9PM Friday night then deciede to run for the barn and get the boys some fluke, seabass and stripers on Saturday . great ride home at 26-knots super smooth seas, like riding on glass.

Arrived in Montauk at Midnight and caught some zees, woke and went fluking and seabass fishing till 4PM when a giant storm front rolled throught ending the afternoon bite with heavy rain and lightning. We had dinner and went back out for dusk at the lighthouse with eels and the shimmano butterfly jigs.

Cody got a small bass on the jig, and that was it till 11PM when I finally got one single hit of a bass, handed the rod off to Heath to reel in when he dropped the bass at the boat. That was it a successful trip with a fish of MY LIFE TIME!

XIAO MU JI running good once again, with good freinds, Heath, Brendan, Greg Kaplar, my GE rep, and the most awesome first mate, video master, my son and mini Captain, Cody! Next week we go to the East in seach of the Big Eyes and big Yellowfins!

So, Standby, Cody will post the video up on-line ASAP, when he gets back from vacation on Thursday. When you see it, if anyone really likes the video and wants to see it in HD, the video grade and clearity is amazing just send me a PM with your info.

Tightlines, Till Next Tide! Marty

THE BUILDING OF "XIAO MU JI"

XiaoMuJi — Tue, 20 May 2008 19:03:28 CDT

AN ALUMINUM SUPER HULL BOAT

Having started fishing in a 14’ John Dory with a 18hp Evinrude in 1971, 19’ Wooden Thompson lapstrake, to a 22’ Boston Whaler Revenge, a 22’Glacier Bay Cat, to a 24’ Albemarle, as well as running a 28’ Albemarle for four years and many other friend’s 30 to 50-foot Sportfisherman boats off to the Edge. I saw the things I liked with each boat, and lots of things I didn’t like about each boat’s setup. I figured out what things I would change to have to make them better fishing machines in my world. So, in 2001 I started dreaming and rough designing my dream boat, by 2005 I turned the dream into a contract and reality. Here is what I did…

While fishing offshore, I heard many stories of boats hitting floating unseen logs, telephone poles, even shipping containers, which ripped out their running gear, fractured their hulls and even sinking a hundred miles offshore. With the slim pickings of today’s canyon fishing catch returns, the need to have ample range and not running out of fuel, or not being able to hold enough space and ice to keep your catch well cared for during what may be a couple of days. It may require you to stay on the Edge, far offshore for three to four days trying to fill your catch quotas. All of these things pointed me, more and more towards an aluminum hull. Now, I heard all the hype about why East Coast boaters don’t like aluminum, most of which is just their lack of knowledge of how great aluminum really is to build a boat out of. After all, on the Northwest Coast, the largest percentage of commercial fishing and recreational fishing boats are built from aluminum or steel and have been for many, many years. What’s the difference in the water from the East to the West coast? Is it the salinity? Is it the size of the waves, the temperature…No! Its just the builders on the West coast have understood just how durable and long lasting aluminum is. It’s not uncommon for an owner of an aluminum boat to have 10 to 20 thousands (yes, I said thousands) of hours in their aluminum boats with little or no problems. Maintenance! No gel coat fading, cracking or blistering, no encapsulated wood stringers rotting to replace, no paint to scratch unless you chose to paint your aluminum boat, no waxing to keep the shine on your hull.

The facts are a good aluminum boat builder, can really give you all the things that make a good inshore or offshore canyon runner, a great one. Great strength, speed, extreme range, easier trailering, stability, comfort and fish ability, all with very, very low maintenance which means a lot less time performing maintenance. To me, this everything an offshore fisherman could want from a boat.

In the early part of the Seventies, I spent my last three years of high school in BOCES, aceing a comprehensive boat building & maintenance coarse. I really loved working, and rebuilding all kinds of boats. For me, now after so many years and owning so many different boats, I was about to begin the process to design and development my own offshore aluminum sports fishing battlewagon. I knew exactly what I wanted and needed to make my girl the perfect date. First, she had to be made of high-grade marine grade aluminum, not fiberglass. With all the research I did in four years of design, I found most builders typically used ¼” thick aluminum alloy plating for their bottoms. This thickness hull, makes them pretty resistant to fracturing or puncturing. I also wanted buoyancy or watertight bulk heads for additional safety, something very few fiberglass boats over 25-feet can give you. I wanted the hull to be between 28 and 32 feet long, with a 9 to 12 foot beam, a variable dead rise, very, very large fuel capacity, and a tower that could be lowered for trailering. I wanted a forward leaning windshields in a hard top pilot house cabin that I could have a second navigation station on the roof to run and troll from.

I didn’t want twin engines for two reasons; first, was with twin engines the fuel capacity had to be reduced due to engine space required while then having less range due to higher fuel burn consumption. Secondly, the cost, I was trying to build the boat of my dreams (just the hull and engine running) for $125,000.00. I figured with my carpentry, electrical and electronics skills; I could build out, fit, wire and finish the rest of the boat myself, saving me tens of thousands of dollars. Trying to find a builder who would build me just the hull, with the motor running was more of a challenge than I thought. For the builder, this meant letting go their profits they would normally make finishing the entire boat. Since I still was pushing my annual budget required to dock, maintain, run, and store the bigger boat, I didn’t want the boat of my dreams to eat me out of house and home, so the single engine worked well for me.

I spent the four years web surfing to find virtually every aluminum boat builder around the world. The more sites I visited, and the more builders I talked to about my design and desires, the more I really learned about the versatility of aluminum. As I got financially close to being able to actually build the boat, I wanted to have a way to show each builder what exactly I wanted. So, I bought and learned how to use AutoCAD, which is a computerized drafting system. This allowed me to email my dream boat drawing to the different builders to get solid prices. After drawing my boat’s design, I found resistance many if not most of the different builders, because what I found was, 95% of the builders use preset construction jigs. This does not allow for changes in the actual hull deadrise angles from stem to stern, which is what I wanted. I wanted a very sharp entry deadrise but a much lesser deadrise at the transom. This would give me a boat that would NOT be a rock-in-roller, like my Albemarle was.

Out of thirty plus builders, (both U.S. and Canadian based) I narrowed the playing field down to three, then just two builders. At this point, I started negotiations on my allowable budget dollars to build my dream boat with one of them. My nightly ritual was spending hours surfing the web, them, low and behold. I was in final negotiations with the two builders, when I hit this website called www.ironwoodboats.com. On the front webpage was this beautiful 28ft new style Boston Whaler looking wide bow flared center console ALUMINUM BOAT, WOW! What beautiful lines she had, lines like I had never seen before of any aluminum boat I had looked at. I went on to read every detail and study every photo of their past builds on their website, I was impressed, to say the least.

Well, I sent the guy an email and a day or two later received a phone call from the builder, John Taylor. I told him that I could not believe how different his boats looked to all the other aluminum builders I had been looking at. I asked him to tell me about his company and boats. I was blown away, this guy went on for nearly an hour and a half. WOW! WOW! WOW! First, he knew virtually everything about every builder I had researched. He explained why most didn’t build variable draft hulls like I wanted. See, a variable, changing deadrise gives a boat the ability to increase lift and decrease its drag thus, go faster. The only other way to do it is with steps in the bottom, like the ones in the GO FAST boats like Fountain and Donzi. Under greater speeds, the steps break up the planning hull’s surface and adds air bubbles which eliminates the water’s drag to the hull. But, without 40+ MPH speed the step really doesn’t produce the efficiency they are designed to produce. I also wanted a very high sherline and bow, one that was typically a foot higher than any boat builder was willing to build without lots of extra expense or at all. John said that he not only could give me the extra high bow, but also would deliver a bow flare which none of the other builders could or would do. When I re-examined the website pictures, he was right, his boat’s bows have an extremely wide flare to them. In fact, on many a trip in rough seas aboard the XIAO MU JI, you could take the same picture as the one used to make the Buddy Davis ad photo. The bow flare just parts the seas and sends a wall of water off to the sides.

Getting back to John, he also uses a super powerful and creative computerized marine design software system that takes AutoCAD drawings and creates a colorful, three dimensional picture of your hull and all of the boat’s complete exterior design. When I received the multi-color PDFs of the final boats design after John added his Ironwood attitude to it, I was blown away.

I made very few changes from his original redesign, he was quite the designer. Every detail was worked out to the 10th of an inch or less. John had given me a curved and reverse back cut transom, tunnelholm curved sides like a South Carolina Sportfisherman, a super high and wide bow flare like the fancy Buddy Davis Sportfisherman have.

In November of 2004, I signed the final contract and sent off my $40K deposit check. In December my boat was put into the building stage, and I was in heaven! I was chomping at the bit each week waiting for John to email me my next set of construction pictures. The more pictures I got the more impressed I was and the more pictures I wanted.

At Ironwood, the entire boat is cut using a computer CRC router system taken from his AutoCAD drawings and are within .001 of an inch in accuracy. John uses high-grade 5052 which is able to "stretch" more than the 5086/5083 grade, thus, enabling it to have more "give" in a situation than the 5086/5083 grade.

Left to right, Marty McMillan, John Taylor (my builder) and his partner Mike.

Heavy duty framing, production welding and stich welding for the strongest construction.

1/2" thick Engine mounts and heavy framing throughout.

Bulbous in front of the thruster hole to push water away from tube and Frenched area behind the hole to allow the water toexit without entering the Bow thruster hole.

Look at this heavy, heavy plates on the bottom, gussets, frames, and 4" x 4" box tubing for the ultimate strength.

John starts his hulls with a full stem to stern ½” x 6” keel, then adds ten full frames of which three become watertight bulk heads, he includes eight stem to stern 2-1/2” x 1-1/2” Tee bar longitudinal stringers each with gussets welded in on each side of the frame. Everything is fully welded, including six passes along the keel for super strength. Now, here again, John goes above and beyond what all the other builders do, he makes all of his hulls over 25-feet in length with the heaviest material, 5/16” bottom plates making the hull almost bulletproof. Most of the other builders depended on their hull’s strength to come from just a couple of panel frames and poured in closed cell Styrofoam to give their hull strength and flotation. He called it the “Boston Whaler” effect, but one of the down sides with poured in closed cell foam, is, over time the foam soaks up water increasing the boats weight, slowing it and costing higher fuel usage. Secondly, the salt water trapped in these chambers with the foam can cause electrolysis and major hull damage to the aluminum. Instead, John builds his larger boats with watertight bulkheads instead of using Styrofoam. Very few, production fiberglass boats have watertight bulk heads, and they give me an outstanding chance of staying afloat should something penetrate one portion of the hull, which is highly, highly unlikely.

The "XIAO MU JI" ready to go fishing!

John doesn’t use any pre-molded extruded metal joints for joining the bottom plates to the side plates as some builders do to speed the fabrication time up and lower building costs. These poured extrusions are made of softer metal and are not as strong and corrosive resistant as welding the two plates together with two outside welding beads and two inside beads at these seams. This is not to say that using them is bad it just isn’t the best method as well as they do not allow for the varying deadrises he makes. Every frame is welded 100% on both sides to the bottom and side plates. At the keel to bottom joint, there are six weld passes made, three inside beads and three outside beads. All of these frames, stringers, bulkheads, side and bottom plates are fully welded making a very strong and ridged, monolithic hull unlike anything else can. John also used a special 1/4” rubber and aluminum clad sound deading sheet material that is cut and glued to the entire inside of the hull below the waterline. This makes the hull very, very quite, in fact, it is so quite with the cabin door closed that it’s like being in a fine automobile. You can just talk at a normal tone, no yelling, no loud engine roar.

Oh ya, the entire engine compartment has 1” sound deading and since it is at the transom and there are two water tight bulkheads in between the engine and the cabin, its just plain quite. In addition to the multiple watertight compartments, John installed one 1500-gallon bilge pump low in the engine compartment and a secondary 2500-gallon pump 3” higher, both with automatic switches. Then he provided an “Emergency” way to remove water from any one of the three watertight compartments should one take on water. He did this by installing a 2” rubber hose from the top of each compartment down into the bottom that attaches to a massive manual hand pump. Safety and strength, how can you go wrong?

1000-Watt Simrad transducer flushed intot he bottom, this allows me to see the bottom at 26-knots.

Being a single engine vessel, I wanted a bow thruster to make docking easier. Here again, I asked for it with an itemized price, when I saw $5,500.00, I thought, heck I can cut the holes and have a 8” tube welded in and save myself at least $3,500.00. Well, John explained that he didn’t just cut a hole and weld a pipe tube in for the thruster. He builds a raised ridge or bulbus edge towards the bow and a countersunk cavity towards the back of the tube. This forces the water away from the tube instead of into the tube when you are running at slow non-planing speed, eliminating constant pressure and spinning of the blades. So, I still felt there was a savings by me shopping around and buying the thruster directly. I got a price for just the thruster tube to be installed by John. Ah! $1,800.00, I found the composite body Maxum 7” thruster with controls for $1,900.00 on the web, and it took me 8-hours of labor to install and wire; a nice savings.

From the pictures in my web album at this link: http://s203.photobucket.com/albums/aa308/Ironwoodtuna/?start=0

As you look through the album, you can also see the extreme bow flare as well as how heavy duty the underside is built.

With the upper superstructure, I wanted a full pilot house cabin, watertight door, sliding side windows, and sharp forward leaning windshields. I like staying with all my things completely dry in a fully enclosed cabin during rough or rainy conditions. The West Coast boats almost all have the forward leaning windshield, some with more angle than others. I wanted an extreme lean to the windshield, this lets the rain and spray instantly run down the windshield while a backward or typical automotive angled windshield leaves the water sitting on the windshield where it , then windshield wipers are an absolute necessity.

Her she is running 30-knots during sea trials in B.C.

John also went a step above here too, instead of the customary ¼” safety glass, he used 3/8 light blue tinted marine safety glass. This combination of angle and thickness makes the windshields very strong against a large wave busting over the bow. With just a coat of RainX on my glass I haven’t used my wipers yet, no matter how heavy the rain has been. The tower on the roof was designed where it has a full bench seat and I will be eventually installing a small steering/navigation console allowing me to navigate the boat from up their. But, as I said in the beginning, I had a limited budget. I wanted the tower to be able to fold forward or backwards to allow easy for easy trailering if I wanted to trailer the boat down south for the winter. My 7-foot tower sits on top of my cabin superstructure. In the pictures below you can see the two Lee Jr. outrigger brackets with 22-foot poles and double spreaders on them. Then off the back center of the tower seat, there are two more 15-foot corner riggers and one 15-foot center rigger, giving me a total of the five outriggers. I troll 11-rods and 13-rods with my Cannon Mag20 downriggers.

This layout allows me to make multiple short, sharp “S” turns while throttling up and down when my first rod gets bit without tangling. Doing so, usually gives me multiple fish hookups, as my lures dance all over the sea.

Here is the setup for trolling 11 to 13 rods at once!

Here is the view of the spread with the spotter in position for the 1st bite!

For the electronics in this boat I spared nothing, at the helm I put in Simrad CX54e, Northstar 951X, Northstar 800X, Simrad AP16 Autopilot, Hummingbird-997SI Side Imaging-echo sounder/GPS, two VHF radios and a Sitex RDF unit. The Simrad CX54e has a 15” flat screen multi-function GPS/Radar/Echo/Chartplotter unit with the super accurate WASS-GPS, echo sounder with a giant 24” long Simrad 1000-watt 38 & 200kHz transducer flush mounted amidships which was boxed and welded in with ½” plate into the hull. I had John make a 3’ long ramp to bring the running water underway across the face of the transducer. This gives me a clear picture of the bottom in 600 feet of water at 25-knots. For the radar antenna.

The helm is designed to make running 100-miles under the hood easier and safe as possible!

I went with the 36” open array antenna mounted on the tower at nearly 15-feet off the water this aids in being able to pickup flying birds on fish and lobsterpots without high flyers, I also added the high speed power converter that allows the radar to update twice as fast with as the normal rotation speed. The unit’s chart plotter can also be over laid onto the radar, but I usually run at night and in fog with the dual screen radar on. I set my left screen in the 1.5-nm and the right screen in the ¼-nm range for running around Montauk Point at night and when running to the canyon at night I use the 3-nm or 6-nm on one screen, and ¼-nm or ½-nm ranges on the other. Also, on the tower sits, two 8’ VHF 6 & 9db radio antennas, Northstar 800X Loran, Northstar 951DPS antennas, and the Sitex Radio Directional Finder antennas with two halogen spreader lights and navigation white light all sit high up where they increase their effective ranges.

On the cabin top, is where my second steering station will go eventually, but for right now there are just my AM/FM radio, Simrad GPS and Northstar GPS antennas. I also just added the Garmin 376C XM Weather/GPS unit to give me up to the minute “Where I am at” weather forecast including lightning, wind, wave heights and speed, and weather radar information. In the transom, I installed two green tinted underwater stainless steel halogen fishing lights to attract squid and baitfish while in the canyon at night. I installed a 2500-watt inverter/triple battery charger with a giant 8-D deep cycle battery for both A/C power on the boat, and is my third battery system for triple redundancy. All of my electronics sit isolated on the three separate battery systems and double or triple fused to provide me with the greatest redundancy and lightning protection. Speaking of lightning, an aluminum boat with a full aluminum cabin provides probably the greatest shielding against a lightning strike. As the full metal hull sits in the water it is completely grounded. The “Blushing Rose” a 37’ aluminum sportfisherman out of Shinnecock, NY has taken a near direct, lightning strike. Capt. Brice didn’t loose any electronics while other nearby boats lost everything, and some had server damage including one sinking due to the grounding plate being blown right off the bottom of the boat from a direct strike to the tower.

As you will see in the pictures in my web album, as part of my cost savings, the interior was completely built and finished by myself, in stained and varnished red oak plywood. I own a large security integration firm and doing all the low-voltage electrical and marine electronics was right up my alley, its done super neat. Every wire is neatly treed, loomed, labeled and listed on a cable directory sheet for the entire boat. The port side of the cabin has a front and back bench seat with a table top that makes it into a bed. The center floor boards of the unit are hinged and store my 40-plus spreader bars and other tackle, while all of my emergency gear is under the rear seat and storage for clothes and stuff is under the forward seat.

Forward of that is the head. To the starboard side under the helm controls is a nice closet for my microwave and dry food storage as well as access to the electrical fuse panels and the back of the electronics. The helm electronics are nicely and very functionally laid out. The captain’s swivel seat sits on top of a storage compartment for my gimbal belts and safety straps, while just behind me is my huge nine drawer tackle station. I made divider louvers in each of the top six drawers to keep all the trolling lures from becoming a mess. They have worked out quite nicely. The bottom next two drawers keep the terminal tackle while the large bottom drawer keeps my manuals, spray lubricants, spare 2lb. Spools of line and other things neat. You also can see I have ample interior rod storage for over 40-rods, two flying gaffs, harpoon, a tag stick, line push rod, and a 22’ telescoping squid net.

John’s ingenuity was great, he designed huge air intakes into the sides of the cabin, then ran then down the sides under the gunnels to the engine compartment adding strength to the sides. He added full length shelves in the cockpit under the gunnels. On each of the cabin walls I added curly wash down hoses which lay neatly out of the way on the shelves. I had toe rails welded in under the shelves along the gunnels. These toe rails allows anyone standing at the gunnels either bottom fishing or fighting a big fish in really rough seas to tuck your boots under them, keep their balance or keep a big fish from pulling them overboard. They work great! I didn’t want a shower in my head, so I installed an outside freshwater shower, something covenant to take a quick wash with, leaving the head, dry and moisture free inside the boat. In the top left picture below, you can see the curved transom, tunnelholm sides, add to extra air exhaust vents, and the four large scupper openings which have 6” balls in them to stop water from coming in when your backing down hard on a fish.

There are vertical gaff holders on each side of cabin walls, you can see the starboard side gaff in the picture, the automatic Ebirb, 70-quart Icey-Tek box for food and sitting on while trolling, a wall mounted fish box light, 7-tower mounted rocket launchers rod holders and center and corner riggers.

of the photos shows the new PVC PlasTek tongue and grove 40-year guaranteed non-skid material that looks like real teak, another maintenance free feature. You also can see the toe railing, 2’x3’ under deck hatch to a full 6’x3’x3’ storage compartment, the full gunnel shelf, the air intake chamber that brings lots of fresh air to the big Volvo diesel. The 1500lb. Exacta box has two gas operated openers and stainless steel hinges to hold the lid open making loading of fish easy, I also added 18-PVC rod holders around the sides of the box to allow clearing of all the rods when we hookup. I added a 9-knife holder and 3-marker buoy holder to the front side of the box with a bottle opener. There is an aggressive non-skid material on the gunnels with 13-rod holders flush welded in.

For range, speed and dependability, I wanted at lease 300+ gallons of diesel fuel with a single large Volvo diesel inboard/outboard. Now your probably saying why a single engine and not dual and you also saying why an outdrive and not an inboard. Here was my reasoning… I looked and talked too many of the large offshore longliners, draggers and lobster boats running hundreds of miles offshore making their living. Most of these commercial boats have a large single inboard diesel. With diesels, the issues are few and with some basic training most problems can be handled at sea. I figured that with an outdrive instead of a propeller, shaft and rudder to be taken off if a log or shipping container were hit, the running gear could pop up and would have the greatest chance of keeping the boat moving. This thinking led me to a choice between a Yanmar 315hp diesel engine mated to a Mercruiser Bravo II single prop outdrive or the new super duty Volvo duo-prop outdrive mated to their 310hp diesel engine. Having run two Albemarles, one my 24' Fisherman Express with a gas I/O and the other a 28' with twin Volvo diesels and sterndrives; there was only one choice for me, Volvo! Yes, the service parts are 10-15% higher in cost, but my past good experiences and their excellent warranty plan; I went for the more expensive Volvo setup. With the first year now gone and nearly 300 hours on her, I am glad I did.

So with the excellent technology the new diesels have, I felt comfortable building her with a single 310-hp Volvo Diesel engine, although I would have preferred to have the 350-hp engine. The 310-hp engine size really wasn’t a mistake, as much as a timing issue. See, when I ordered the boat only the 310-hp engine was the only available engine, but just after the engine got delivered, the 350hp version came out. I do wish I had the extra horse power, now you probably would say why, because right now, she runs a solid 25-knots. That’s with a full load going on a canyon trip, 1500-pounds of ice, bait, chum, 310-gallons of fuel, 40-rods, lots of gear, food, water, a crew of five or six and she burns 15 to 16-gallons per hour doing so. But, I really think I can get 30-32-knots at cruise with the now availavle 370hp sterndrive package. At this point, when she is ready for a re-power they will probably have a 435-hp package available.

The propulsion was the next choice I had to make. After seeing many boats with their inboard drive shafts and props wrapped in lobster pot high-flyer lines I didn’t want to be under the boat at night under water cutting off ropes or smacking a log and bending a shaft, a set of props and ripping off the rudder. I looked at jet drives like they use in the northwest river boats, because they can run right over a lobster pot rope and not suck it up. But the space required inside the hull made the size of the fuel tanks too small.

This led me to the newly developed giant heavy duty Volvo duo-prop outdrive. Volvo’s Swedish development of these massive diesel capable outdrive has the torpedo twin counter rotating propellers. If I am traveling at night and hit a floating object, the hull can handle the impact and the outdrive will flip up out of the way with little or no damage. I also felt that when I wrap a rope on the props being able to raise the drive up would make having to get into the water less of a chance. Little did I know that all of these battleship hardening designs would come into play on our maiden voyage to East Atlantis canyon last June. We had left Montauk at 11:00PM and headed to East Atlantis to the warm core eddy that had broken off the Gulf Stream.

Here is a view of our 11-rod trolling spread just waiting to ring the FISH ON! bell.

I opted for a small raised engine box, since I wanted high gunnel heights; I have 31” gunnels at the transom. The engine box is only 8” high and not a problem to navigate with a fish on due to the non-skid PlasTEAK decking. The engine hatch has gas charged openers and reveals a huge compartment where the engine, five batteries, inverter, wash down pumps & shut off valves, fuel filters, water separators and other important components are easily accessible. I also have to tell you how I came up with the name for the boat. Being divorced and no longer getting to take the write-off from my house, my accountant wanted me to buy a new house or get something I could take a write-off on. So, I talked it over with my Fiancé (now wife) and explained it would really be pushing things to buy a house right now, but if I took a home equity loan, I could give us a bigger boat than our 24’ Albemarle and bring home more Sashimi. She loves to fish and loves even more to eat them, so she gave me the blessing to build the boat. Now that’s when you know you have the right woman! So, since we are both born the year of the Rooster, and her Chinese nickname, “XIAO MU JI” (She-Ou-Moo-Gee) I had to name the boat after her.

As we run back to the Barn, full of fish and big smiles on our faces!

Well Boys, its time to go catch some tuna, marlins, wahoo, dolphins, and striped bass. If you see me out there, feel free to check out my trolling spread and the way she runs. Tightlines, and let us all have a great fishing and boating season. Marty L. McMillan

MAIDEN VOYAGE FOR THE "XIAO MU JI" 2008 SEASON

XiaoMuJi — Tue, 20 May 2008 18:45:23 CDT

XiaoMuJi
1 minute ago
Well, Sunday, May 18th, 2008, Cody, my wife Nancy and I took a spin out to the south side of Montauk off the Radar Tower in 65' to 70' of water for some fluke fishing. We had a near full moon and high winds that built all day. In the morningthe wind out of the west was around 10-15 knots, and built to near 20+ knots by noon. We had two hours of the end of incoming left for the morning so we drifted from West to East at around 1.5 to 2.0 knots. We iused squid strips on tandem hook fluke rigs with flor. green 4" squid skirts and tipped with large sand eels. Nancy had the 1st throwback at around 19" , then I got a 20.7" keeper and four more shorts in the 18-20" range. Cody finally got going and had four fish all shorts in the same range.

The tide went slack around 10-10:30AM then finally started moving around 11AM changed. Donald Wu fishing abord the "Nice Day Too" a 55' aluminum catamaran party boat run by Tommy . Donald called me and said they had nothing but dogfish and a few keeper Black Sea Bass on a 60' hump of rough bottom just a mile south west of where we were fishing. By the end of the day, they never got a fluke and only managed another couple of keeper bass.

The Lighthouse rips held small keeper size Stripers for those who could take the torture of jigging wire line and bucktails. That's not for me! I'll wait till the night time ell bite is on. In the mean time, we will go North to the Race, Sluiceway and Gut for bass at night on bucktails and three way rigs.

I can't wait till the next Warm Core Eddy comes roaring into the Northeast Canyons so I can go get some fresh tuna for the pallet. Tightlines, Till the next Tide!

By the way, we will be taking our 1st military guess from our participation of "TAKE A VET FISHING" program I joined last year. It should be a good time for all.

Xiao Mu Ji Fishing Reports 07

XiaoMuJi — Thu, 08 May 2008 21:02:13 CDT

UNDER THE COVER OF DARKNESS-MONTAUK STRIPER BLITZ on 07-08-07
Storms rolling in Friday night in Montauk kept me inshore again this weekend. With the Thunderstorms having rolled trough Montauk by 10PM, my son Cody, and I fished the incoming tide from 10:30 till 2:00AM. It was a beautiful night came to be, the conditions and water were great, but the rips didn't hold much of anything including bait or bass. I went down swinging, with only two hits and no bass in the box.
Saturday morning after a three hour nap, it was 5AM, and Cody and I set off to troll for the Bluefin tunas South of B.I. we trolled till 11AM with no action and no BFT seen. So, we came back to Montauk for some bottom fishing, we had some beautiful Seabass and Porgys for my wife to cook.
Took a shower and a short nap till 10:30PM when my partner would arrive.

Undetered, and having experienced many, many early July blitzes in the Montauk rips, my fishing partner, Al talked with Cody about a past July when Cody had dropped a Monster Bass in the rips during the July moon. That July we managed thirty-two bass, over thirty-pounds, in three nights worth of outgoing tides. Six of the fish over 40lbs, with three over 45lbs. These experiences and strong beleifs are a great thing! So, off we went to the rips of Montauk knowing of these great past monster catches.

We got to our fisrt rip under the cover of total darkness except for the low glow of my amber cockpit lights. The wind had dropped out and the moon wasn't up, it was just dark and quite. Al dropped his eel in into the depths, then Cody dropped his eel down, then I dropped my eel down. Luck be on my side, I must have hit the fish on the head. Instantly I was into a 40+ pound fish. The fish came right to the boat like a schoolie! Then the big fish rolled, and made a monster run down and away from the boat, then as most monster bass do, she ran out and up towards the surface, making a huge commotion. I worked her back to the boat where she rolled and drove for a second run, Cody had put his rod down and grabbed his video cam.

The fish was a good solid 40+ ponder. I felt her shake her head and then I felt my 10/0 Gamogatus hook pull.
We continued back up to the begriming of the drift, as each drift passed we caught, hooked dropped and had shots for a good hour and a half. Then the action got slow on this great Montauk incoming tide. So, we ran over to the Elbow, made a few drifts there with not hits, then drifted Great Eastern for a couple more drifts with no action. This was the recent MO of the poor night fishing that has been so far this year in Montauk.
Believing that the break we had now given our initial spot, we returned. Drift by drift, we began to take one or two fish per drift. The bass were not committing suicide, they were finicky, in fact you had to let them eat the eel for a while, a sign that there wasn't a lot of bait in the area. After Cody had put his rod down and went to sleep, Al and I continued to put together a great night's catch. After the pethetic Friday night of bass fishing, many anglers may not have beleived that the fishing could have gotten good the very next night, plus with the cost of fuel and bait, many would have chosen to stay home. But, we believed! A nice brace of 28-bass taken, all the fish were solid 24-32 lb range with two more screamer cows dropped.

By 2AM, we were the only boat still fishing, by 4AM it was time to head in, clean our three bass we kept for steaks. But, that wasn't the end, no rest for the weary. I had to immediately get Cody up and drive him home for a Hershey Park trip by 8am. Off to the canyons next weekend. It's tuna time so the next report will be from the offshore. Capt. Mty

GLORIOUS RETURN FROM BEYOND-on 08-14-07:
XIAO MU JI was returned to the water on Friday, seatrialed and set to leave for a far away canyon for a two and a half day journey. Saturday at 1:30AM, my Partner Al was to arrive along with two other fisherman who have fished with me before. At 11:30PM I get awoken by my cell phone, its the other two guys tell me, one hurt his back and the other guy can't find a replacement so he not going either. This put me in a real pickle since they were to bring the food for them and my son Cody and I. Knowing this I got the marina restaurant owner to make us up some chicken sandwiches and three quarts of his great clam chowder. Luckily, we had picked up cereal and skim milk, water and some fruit and Danishes. Alfred arrives and off we go. I pointed my girl towards West Atlantis and off we went at 25-knots, just hitting 91NM, we arrived as the first light turned into daybreak. We set out a pattern of nine spreader bars, and out back one bird with a Black Bart Pro Jet marlin lure and a bigeye smoker in close to the bumper teasers. By 7AM we got the first hit, dumped half a spool trying to get a multiple hookup to no avail. Cody got to work and we boated our 1st 70-pound YFT on a CR-Lolly-pop bar.

We worked a north to south zig-zag pattern as we headed to the east, from 450ft to 800ft with no other takers. As 9AM rolled around, we decided to look for better water in Veathes, so we pulled in and ran to about 5-miles west of the wall and dropped in the lines. we worked N & S along the wall, worked the north wall and then up and down the east wall. During the afternoon, we had been hearing a guy talking about taking big fish somewhere around Hydrogaphers. At 4PM the captain from the boat "TENACIOUS" give the numbers which was just another 13-miles from our location.
A: I want to send out a sincere THANK YOU to the Captain on the TENACIOUS, your sharing of your numbers and information, it really made a long and expensive trip (that just me and my partner were sharing alone ) less painful. In fact, YOU made it worth every dollar! Its a big ocean out there, its good to share and to receive. We differently received on this trip.

At 11:00AM I turned the helm over to Cody and went to knap, I hear Al say "Hey Man, I want to get a ten banger" to Cody, Cody replied, AL we can only keep three more fish, lets get a big eye or a wahoo. I closed my eyes grinning only to here clip after clip popping and reels screaming off line. One on, two, three On, four five ON, I jumped to the helm and Cody and Al went to work. OF coarse, with only two fisherman to man rods and me at the helm, it was tuff to work it all. But, Cody set up one rod in his harness and worked a second rod in the gunnel. Al worked one rod and I ran back and forth from the helm to each of the other rods that needed clearing. Ultimately, Cody dropped one and landed one fish, Al lost one and landed one. Al took the helm and I grabbed the last setup, a #20 Finnor with 600-yards of 60# JB with a 300-yard top shot of 30# Momoi. The reel was over 2/3 empty. I started barking commands to Cody to clear the last few tangled lines with his safety cutter and Al to go chasing after the fish. We bobbed and weave lobster pots and circled this big fish many times. After an hour and forty five minutes, twenty one circles on, and over the fish trying and achieving getting the fish out of the depths with 30# test line. I raised the brute three times to where the leader touched the rod, then the cow just saw the boat (and maybe me) and would strip of nearly half a spool again and again. On the third rise, I actually got to see this super bruiser, a real big boy 250-300# Bigeye. On the fourth time, we all thought that we were getting close to getting a gaff into this big fish. When with no motion or movement from me or the boat, the battle came to an end. Game Over! Oh know!. As I reeled the line up, the bimini knot came up, the 250# wind-on came up with the swivel and the 400# lure leader loop and line came up.

But! the lure leader was only three inches long. At one point in the fight I could feel the tail or something rubbing and something popped, but I still had the fish on, I knew in my heart, "That wasn't good". In examining the wind-on the first three feet was completely like sandpaper had been used on it. I was tired, sad but really proud that my little three man crew had put to the wood a stellar performance. Between great boat handling to my commands, my speed reeling, grunt pulling and Cody's standing by with gaff and a cold drink and my wiring gloves. We lost the battle, but I think, we won the War. NO! I know, we won! That unbelievable loss is what and why I fish. These great battles, whether won or lost, are the soul building, mind stimulating, adrenaline rushing challenges that I thrive on. Having my 15-year old son there to see the epic battle and the ultimate disappointment of the outcome and how I delt wit it. I know these actions will build his memory and soul with good things he too will pass on one day. Teaching him its not possible to win evey time no matter how good you are and how right you do things. WHen it's your turn to when, savor it, remember it and it feels so much better.

Details: We worked East to Weat from 10 to 13 mile to the east of Veatches in the 450-800foot depth. Marlins, big Wahoos, YF tunas to 130#s and nice big, Bigeyes as well as a 120# Sword that I heard of were all taken by a few group of boats. Water was 77-78 degrees, I marked a lot of bait on the bottom, Skippies and smaller 2- to 30 #YFT for Marln candy was present with squids of 8 to 14" long at night. Some porpises, and birds marked the area. Most guys were fishing less rods due to the hot bite. We ran 135NM back to Montauk, fueled up just before the lightning storm hit and burned 220-gaalons leaving me an 80-gallon reserve. New drive worked better, giving me 2-3 more knots of crusing speed at two-hundred less RPM. Nice!

We quickly pulled up and headed farther east. As we arrive there were three boats working the area and in we dropped. Within 20-minutes we had big tunas smashing our spread, I danced the boat, throttled up and down, zigging and zagging and we had knock downs on five rods, with only two hooking up. Cody and Al went to work and two 70 & 90# YFT, hit the deck. We trolled the area till dark with a few skippies getting into our spread. We set up for the night and drifted southward off the shelf with one Swordfish Squid down deep and three tuna baits distributed at different depths while we chunked fresh small butterfish and squid. THe Hydro lights brought in a mixed size of squids throughout the night until 2AM the Bent-butt #80 Sword rod went off as 130# line peeled off, the longer the run went the heabvy I increased the drag, the run that took 180-hards of mono off and down to my Jerry Brown 130# backing. THen, before anything could be done, Nothing! Gone! Over and Out! That hurt! The rest of the night was a wash. Took a short power napp and at 5:30 put the girl on the troll. We grabbed another 60# and 80# YFT with a few other single knockdowns with out hookups. THe other boats were saying that they had to keep the spread farther away from the boat. Big fish, but kinda finicky!
Sorry I don't have pixs just yet, I will postthem tomorrow and give the Loran #s too. I think these fish are moving towards Veatches...
Again, Thanks TENACIOUS ! Capt. Marty & Crew

RETURN FROM THE TAILS & WEST ATLANTIS-on 09-04-07:
Cody and I awoke at 1:30AM, with "XIAO MU JI" ready and waiting for the crew to arrive. On queue, Alfred, aka "Norman Batts-PSYCHO", George C. & Alex T. off pushed off for the deep. The plan was to run to 14378 x 436123 and drop in North of the Tails where the fish had been Thursday. We arrived on site at 5:00AM and set up our pattern of small bait spreader bars framed with two Williamson Bonitos chasing the spread and two Bigeye stubby chuggers on the outside of the spread, on the long riggers. The were skippies and small bait all over the place we worked the area till 8:00AM then headed to the South to the Tails, the radio chatter was that it was going to be a tuff troll, and only a couple of YFT at night on the chunk.

We hooked up on the Northeast corner of the mouth of the Tails, George being it was his 1st canyon trip was given the experience of fighting and landed his 1st 50# Albie, and we continued to work the area for an hour with no more takers. So, we pulled and ran 11-NM to the northeast, dropping in at 14600 x 43400, where the report of whales & bait had gotten my attention. We worked area with whales, turtles and porpoise, again no takers so we headed towards the southeast until we reached the notch west of West Atlantis. As we came across 650' line, we found and worked a huge school of small porpoise for a while with no takers. Then, trolling east towards West Atlantis we came across a 175-200# Swordfish cruising the surface and made two attempts to bait him with a slow trolled giant squid, he wasn't interested and sounded. It was 4:30PM, so we pulled and ran 8-NM to the Southeast corner of West Atlantis, 14375 x 43350 and dropped in our spread looking for the evening bite. We immediately ran over a huge concentration of bait balls, with porpoise around and stayed locked on the area until darkness took the opportunity away.

Under the cover of darkness, the slight breeze had died to complete calm. We moved out to 800', shutdown and setup for the night bite. Drifting Southeast till we got into 1500' around 11:00PM, were we pulled and ran back up to where we had all the bait balls were in 630' of water. Under the beautiful stars and half moon it made us feel so lucky to be in God's Country. We again deployed two giant squid baits at 250' and 125' for Swords, and three whole Butters at different depths for the tunas. The first YFT came into the spread and we were hooked up around 1:00AM. Alex brought to my gaff, a nice 70# YFT. The "Code Master" Cody immediately dropped down and started working his long Butterfly jig and with in 15-minutes had a nice fish screaming drag on 50# Power Pro off his Torium 30. A couple of minutes later, a 74# YFT met my gaff and landed on the deck. Things were looking up! Finally, the skunk was out of the box and we anticipated the next bite. Things stayed quite for an hour or so till another 60# YFT met its demise under Alfred's rod. At 4:10AM, first light was coming and another tuna baited rod started screaming off into the deep. George took this fish, and after a few screaming runs, I saw in the glow of our Hydroglow lights, that he had himself a Swordfish, no monster but a definitely a keeper. Being careful not to break the light 60# fluorocarbon leader, I wired and gaffed the Swordie. It measured out 48.5" lower jaw to fork and I could smell the barbeque. We were out of butterfish, so we re-rigged for the morning troll.

I was setting in the spread and with just two rods left to get into the spread the center rigger popped. The fish missed the hook. I raced to the helm and started dancing the boat and throttle. Nothing, so as I was deploying the 10th rod the 9th rod, short rigger on a Zucchini Spreader bar went off screaming. I jumped back to the helm and danced the boat again dumping nearly half the spool looking for a multiple hookup. Nothing, back down the throttles and Alfred was into the battle. The boat next to us, the "REEL OFFICIAL" hooked up on two Bigeyes too. Al fought the fish and I drove around keeping the fish in the Starboard corner for nearly 2-hours. I was a little frustrated with Al, because I felt he wasn't putting the pressure on the fish. But, I held back telling him what to do. I figured the fish would soon start to dictate to him that he should start listening to me and start pressuring the fish. That point came and Al started to really pump the fish, the fish at one point came up to the surface around 60' from the boat, what a pig, probably in the 300# range, just monstrous. Then it sounded again going deep. Here, the very next trip, we were again into another bruiser Bigeye, but, this time, it was on a Shimano TLD-50 LRS with a top shot of 250-yards of 80# Momoi and 900-yards of JB. Ten minutes later, we had my Bimini knot coming out of the water, I gave Cody the helm, and as I was moving toward and watching the knot coming out of the water, the line parted. Al was jolted backwards, he wasn't doing anything when it happened, the line just snapped! Once again, we lost shot at landing a Bigeye bruiser. Getting over the depression, I got us back on the troll, Al from the REEL OFFICIAL called me and said that he had a fish on so I made way for him. He had landed his two 300# Bigeyes that he had hooked up on and was now into a smaller fish. We worked the area till 10:00AM, the wind was now blowing an easy 15-20-knots out of the Southwest so we started trolling toward the barn. At 11:30AM we pulled in and ran the remaining 86-NM home being able to only run between 18 to 20-knots, we rounded the Montauk Jetty at 4:30PM. Cleaned fish, the boat, then drove Cody home dropped him off, then took my tired ass and finished my drive back to Manhattan, arriving 10:30PM. The end of a good Weekend Canyon Trip and said Good Night! Capt. Marty

ANOTHER TRIP TO WEST ATLANTIS-on 09-10-07
The "XIAO MU JI" was in for another run to the edge, as the weather was going to take a dump late Saturday going 5-7 ft out of the southeast and Sunday building to 7-9ft on Monday. So,Friday night into Saturday was going the only opportunity we were going to have in getting back to our big fish we had last week in West Atlantis. The crew comprised of George M., Rexx L. Cody and myself. We arrived at the vessel at 5:30PM and Cody & Rexx started icing and salting the boat. I started rigging the swordfish squids while Cody and Rexx started chopping the butterfish for the coming night. George arrived and we shoved off. As we came out of the inlet and I went into program mode and got the AP16 into the auto-tuning mode. Alan from Simrad had been kind enough to reset the unit and reprogram it for me before we got to the boat. Thanks Alan! With the unit now runnning good, we set off for the edge. As we came around the Montauk Point we headed the 96-NM to the West Corner of West Atlantis, we soon were backing down from our initial 25-knot cruise speed to slower 18-19knots in building seas. We arrived on scene near the edge at 11:30 in 4-6 foot seas.

We motored over to our last week numbers and put the boat into neutral. As we readied the bait rods the current gave up it's direction that we were going to be drifting as I wanted to the east. Out went the Sword bait rods, one set at 250ft and the other at 125ft with giant rigged squids and tamden 12/0 Gamagatsu Big Game Hooks, 300# leaders and deep drop multi-color lights. George started chunking as Rexx got the tuna rods in the water with whole butterfish and sardines. I got to putting the green and blue Hydroglow lights into the water and the generator going. Cody started jigging with his Butterfly jig he had been successful with last week. It was a rockin-rollin night with the 4-6 foot seas and the occasional 8-footer thrown in to keep you working on your toes.

Eventually, Cody hit the sack, George had been chumming himself and he too went down for the count. Rexx and I stay focused on getting the action going. Around 2Am I took a nap then gave Rexx a short nap. Around 4AM I got Cody up and he took over the chunking duties. I laid down to hear Cody yell "Dad" "Dad" , "I got something!" I need help the line is tangled. I jumped up and as I got to the rod and tried to get it out of the holder to get the tip wrap undun the rod doubled over and SNAP! It was free. The hit wasn't like the typical tuna hit. it was that tell-tale swordfish run-off. It was also the witching when we always get our swordfish bites. Oh well!, then reeling in the 125ft swordfish rod, we found a small Mahi on the bait. Could'nt belief it. I started getting the trolling rods ready and baits on the for the mooring troll. The night radio chatter was that our slow bite was the same for everyone else sitting on the edge. We heard of one short sword and one keeper sword coming in along with just one or two yellows.

With everyone up and the sunrise upon us, we set out the spread riding in the trough of the rough seas. Just as we trolled northward to our last bigeye bite numbers the port corner rigger with a lolly-pop spreader bar cracked and the 80 bent butt started screaming out line. I started my throttle dancing and thrashing of the boat dance trying to get a multiple. Finally, I gave the helm to Rexx and I took the rod. I started to reel and there was nothing, it was gone. The mystery fish was gone! We worked the area till 10:30 AM with no other takers.

We started trolling the toward Montauk, as I got off the edge and up on the flats I switched my spread to four Stauker "The Ticket" chugger lures framing seven new Fred Archer mini-bait bars in Silver/Pink 2-3/4" squids being chased by large 12" predator squids using weed guards on them since the amount of weed was ridiculously bad! We were coming up on 14435 x 43335 and I changed the seven to pink/silver mini bars to seven black/silver/pink mini Fred bars with 9" Hot Pink baits chasing them. I went up to the tower to enjoy the ride with Cody and get some filming in. I was watching the spread when a two big fish rolled on the port side corner rigger mini bar and the long lat bars. The rigger clip cracked but the rod didn't come tight. I got down and started coming about to run over the same spot. We rest the corner rigger and as we came back over the waypoint the pack attacked again. With the kreel in the area, I knew these mini bait bars were going to be the ticket. This time I danced the boat, saw a few more fish roll and the third fish was on. Cody and Rexx started fighting the two fish when Cody's fish was off, he quickly grabbed the other rod. Cody's fish came to the boat first and met the gaff in it's head. Nice Albacore! Then Rexx's fish met Cody's gaff in its head too. Nice Gaff job Cody, I said!
We got the spread back out and worked the area for a couple of passes. Then I put "XIAO MU JI" back on auto-pilot with her path to Montauk. A ten minutes later another fish hit the spread and George took the rod. This fish was taking lots of line and I thought that just maybe we had found the Allison yellow fins or even a Bigeye. With no more takers in the spread I throttled back and let George get to work. I have to say this fish fought hard all the way to the boat. I felt comfortable since it was on one of the 80s. I got my gloves on and Cody readied the gaff. As I saw color it was a nice fish but not a really big fish. I wired the fish and brought it to Cody who made another perfect head gaff shot. Cody couldn't hardly get the fish over the gunnel. Wow! that's some slob of an Albacore! its close to 60-pounds guys. We iced the fish and got back to working the area for a while. Soon two more rods when off and Cody and I took the rods, these were small fish, I thought. Sure enough, I see my fish going side ways across the surface. What! What was this, its small whatever it is I thought. Soon, the two dolphins showed themselves and we had them in the boat.
Finally, with no more action it was 2:30PM and 64-miles to the Point we said enough! We cleared the spread, pulled in the riggers, pointed the girl toward the barn and rounded the Inlet at 5:30PM. Fueled up taking a mere 140-gallons of diesel for a 200-mile round trip with 14-hours of trolling canyon trip, Not Bad, I thought!

Back at the dock, with three Mahis and three Albacore, we saw the largest Albacore on the Dock Record board for the year was only a 51-pounder. So, we took to getting the big Albacore weighed. It tipped the scale at 57.65 pounds, a new dock record for the year. Well, it was a little consolation prize for a slow trip to the edge. I can't wait to get out there again. Capt. Marty

Xaio Mu Ji Fishing Reports 06

XiaoMuJi — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 13:40:03 CDT

100-SQUARE HUDSON CANYON TRIP- on 10-01-06
Capt. Marty L. McMillan, on the XIAO MU JI and crew of my 14-year old son Cody, George and Bill left Montauk on Friday night for the 100-Square. The weather forcast said that it was going to be laying down to 3-4ft with 10-knots of less variable North winds. We left port at 6PM and spent 5-hours riding 7 to 10-foot seas running 16 to 20 knots depending on big the waves to the 100-fathom line N.E. of the 100-square area. We started chunking while drifting Southeast from the 450-ft depth and ended by daybreak on the 750-ft depth. We had big squid around the boat's underwater Hydrostick lights. The wind finally blew out and went light and variable around 3AM. We chunked till 4-am with no hits, then finally Cody got the first fish around 65lbs on a butterfish. Around 4:30AM Bill Labadore one of my salesmen caught and released a pesky 150+ bluedog (his first). Around 5:15AM, I got a 60+ YFT on a jig 60-feet down then a couple minutes later Bill got a 60+lb. YFT on the jig with the others getting a few hits but no solid hook-ups. The fish were under the lights but not taking the baits or jigs. We dropped one more YFT around the same size a 6:45AM in the same area on the troll. Worked the area with birds hovering around without any takers. Stopped at a giant weed bed on the way home and caught 15-small to medium size Mahis. Also got to watch a 30" baby Mako chase and cut in half a small Mahi while all the mahis were being caught. That was a wild sight to watch unfold, what a manuverable, fast and agressive little fish, can't wait till he grows up.

MAKO-ME-HAPPY on 09-15-06
Cody and I at first light after chumming all night finally had on a 400+ pound Thresher. Got it right up to the boat just the two of us, with Cody on the deep set 80# outfit for 45-minutes then pulled the hook right at the boat. I was almost happy with that big of fish and just the two of us. Then 20-minutes later the shallow 50# stand-up rod went off. This time I has Cody set the hook like a mad-man, once again it was "Fight On". Within 30-minutes, Cody got the 183lb. Mako boatside. I leadered and flying gaffed it single-handedly. Got the tail rope on, but we could'nt get it into the boat, I didn;t have a block and tackle on the boat ( I do now). Tried to head home, but I didn't like the fish on the outside so, the two of us fought the fish over the high gunnels after about 15-minutes of sweating our butts off and then ran home. First Mako on the new boat. Since we go after anything, and any size fish that swims, I take safety seriously, you will notice the black safety rope I have on him. Never fool around with your loved ones...Catchum up Boys!

Construction Photos

XiaoMuJi — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 14:18:09 CST

Photos

XiaoMuJi — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 19:04:23 CST


65lb Yellowfin Tuna On The Butterfly Jig	21 Yellowfin Tuna.	Cody's 83lb Bluefin Tuna
85lb Swordfish	Nice Mahi-Mahi	Cody's 10lb Tilefish 550ft of water on a butterfly jig

Xiao Mu Ji Videos 2

XiaoMuJi — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 18:42:04 CST

Final Product

XiaoMuJi — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 18:32:04 CST

construction photos continued again

XiaoMuJi — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 18:13:13 CST

Construction pictures continued continued

XiaoMuJi — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 16:41:58 CST

Construction Photos continued

XiaoMuJi — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 15:14:42 CST