On to Willis
The weather finally abated, opening a window for us to make our way toward Willis. The crossing wasn't without its moments, though. At one point The Boss took a green wave over the superstructure — at night — that was strong enough to knock me out of my bunk. Two days later we approached Willis Island, the main body of land in the group. Its sole inhabitants besides several thousand noddy terns and masked boobies are four meteorologists who maintain a weather station there. So seldom do the scientists get visitors that, when our flotilla arrived, they hailed us on the VHF radio to make sure we were OK.

As our crew got The Boss anchored, we decided to do a bit of exploratory trolling in the hopes of figuring out where the main body of dogtooth tuna might be located. Trosset and I split up, fishing on different boats; he on the Pirate with Sowers and I on the Wild Turkey with Schwartz. One of the dilemmas when exploring uncharted territory is where to fish. Our plan was to troll large swimming plugs on heavy tackle for a few hours to see if we could locate some doggies.

Less than 20 minutes after putting our lines out, I hooked a 92-pounder on 50-pound that will likely go down as one of my lifetime fish. I was feeling pretty cocky when we got back to The Boss to weigh my fish. That lasted right up to the moment when Trosset threw a 167-pounder up on the deck — a new 30-pound-line-class record and the 165th of his career. Sitting side by side, his looked like it could have eaten my fish.

But we didn't come to fish heavy conventional tackle for doggies. We came to catch them on fly. And that, we did.

Doggies On Fly
Chittum is the world's leading expert on chasing dogtooth tuna on fly, holding the 12- (50-pounds, 11-ounces), 16- (147 pounds, 14 ounces) and 20-pound (88 pounds, 2 ounces) IGFA tippet marks. His favored method of taking doggies involves bait-and-switch fishing with MoldCraft Wide Range lures and gigantic foam-tube poppers. You'll usually get one or two shots at fish before they fade. Wrestling with a 20-weight fly rod and popping bugs that weigh several ounces is — to say the least — a macho effort.

The fish we encountered weren't as aggressive as those Chittum found on previous trips to the Great Barrier Reef. Although he and his crew were getting bites, it seemed more like a Chinese fire drill for Schwartz and me. We'd get a bite but, by the time we wrestled the gigantic popper out to where the fish was and the teasers were cleared, the doggies were gone.

After two or three tries, I got frustrated and decided to go old-school. Capt. Bright and I held a strategy session.

"I want to try something different," I said. "It seems like when you get this big bug out there, if the fish aren't interested, you're out of the game. Let's go to a sinking fly and see if there's anybody else around when we get the bite. If I don't hook up immediately, keep the boat out of gear and let me fish the fly deep a couple of times and see what happens. I'll bet when the teaser gets crashed, three or four other fish are swimming around down below looking for something to eat, and we'll get a bite."

We put the teasers back out and instantly raised a fish. Bright pulled the boat out of gear, Simms cleared the teasers and I fired a Puglisi tube fly armed with 7/0 Gamakatsu hooks towards the boil.

Nothing.

Sticking to our plan, I got the fly down 20 feet and then tucked the rod under my arm and started a quick double-handed striper strip. Halfway back to the boat, I got the bite. And what a bite it was!

The dogtooth tuna begins its battle with one of the most breathtaking, blistering horizontal runs in sport fishing. It's like being attached to a Saturn V rocket heading sideways.

Getting the fish on the reel, I had to deal with the trademark vertical dive that comes next. The doggie ran off the edge of the reef, but Bright was able to keep the Turkey over the fish. It soon settled down into a typical bull-dogging tuna fight and, 20 minutes later, I had the doggie circling within reach of mate Greg Simms' brawny grip. When we got the fish on board, I couldn't believe it was only a 25-pounder. Pound for pound, it was one of the hardest-fighting fish I've ever caught.

Snapping a couple of photos, we iced that fish down for a little white-tuna sashimi (the dogtooth is an incredible eating fish, either as sashimi or grilled). Bright grinned from the bridge.

"I think we might be on to something here," he beamed. We put the lures back out and got right back to it. Over the next few days we used the technique to take multiple dogtooth, hooking several hogs that we never had a hope of landing before they got us into the reef. After my departure, Trosset hooked a fish that took half a Tibor Pacific's worth of backing — 750 yards of 50-pound PowerPro — before slicing the gelspun on the reef.