Sep 12
Ok today's fishing report is a two part report. As some of you might know I run the Hooked Up but I've also got a partner in another boat called the Local Knowledge and today my partner is out of town and needed me to run the Local knowledge for him so we'll start out with the fishing trip aboard the Hooked Up
We had Captain Greg and Captain J.J. running the Hooked Up and they had Danny and Rick from New York and they also had Paul, Tony and Joe from South Florida.
They started out trolling the reef with 2 planners running down deep and three surface lines skipping across the surface. Once again the king fish and bonitos were biting and before we knew it everyone had caught fish. Once we got far enough to the south they brought in all the trolling gear and sent down a live bait down about 225 feet to a ship wreck. From there the wait was not long till the rod bent over and line was peeling off the reel. One of the guys jumped in the chair and the fight was on.
They ended up catching a monster amber jack along with a nice barracuda and a box full of king fish and bonitos.
Nice going guys
Ok mean while I was on my way off shore headed for the sword fish grounds. I had an old customer on board who has fished with us a few times in the past. On one of his trips aboard the Hooked Up in the past with his son they had caught 5 sail fish on one trip. WOW now that's a hard trip to beat. All the same Jim from Michigan my mate Brett and I were off to see what the fish gods had in store for us today.
Since we were going about 17 miles off shore we decided to set out 4 high speed lures and just hope for the best. We were running about 8 knots just trying to cover some ground without using too much fuel.
We had been trolling for a good hour and a half when all of a sudden I heard Brett yelling (THERE HE IS)
As I turned around I could not believe what I was looking at. There was this huge blue marlin jumping all over the surface of the ocean and running right at the boat. I did not even slow the boat down for a good 30 to 40 seconds after we were HOOKED UP because he just kept coming at the boat.
Once the fish disappeared down into the deep blue water I slowed the boat down and all you could hear was the line screaming off the reel. Within one min of slowing the boat down Brett started yelling again back down back down we are running out of line. Well I can tell you that while I've got no problem backing down on a fish I shore as heck can't back straight down into the water. In other words the line was going straight down into the deep blue and there was no way of backing down.
Now that we were straight up and down with this fish the line started to slow down a bit and we did still have some line left on the reel. All of a sudden about 50 yards away from the boat we saw this big blue marlin jumping all over the place. This fish was so fast that even though the line was going straight down behind the boat the fish was in fact on the surface. Talk about having a big belly in the line.
Finally after a good 45 min Jim had reeled in a good half a spool of line back on the reel and we were looking like we just might have a shot at catching this fish. I've got to say that Jim stayed right on this fish and never once missed up. It was like he was so in tune to what the fish was doing and to what Brett was saying it was all working like a well oiled machine.
It took one hour and fifteen min for Jim to finally reel his catch to the side of the boat.
We slid the fish part way in the tuna door to get a quick measurement of his catch in order to have a replica trophy made of his catch. Then we slid the fish back into the water and held his bill and just slowly trolled him around for a good 5 min to help the fish catch his breath and swim away on his own.
I fish with a lot of people every year but I really think that Jim has to be the luckiest fisherman I've ever meat.
After a lot of hand shaking and high fiving we went back to high speed trolling toward the sword fish ground.
Once we got to the sword fish grounds all kinds of things started popping up. While we were just getting to the spot where we were going to make our first drop a water spout popped up not far from the boat.
Than as we started our second or third drop I told Brett to stop dropping because I seen something big floating in the water and there might be some dolphin fish around it. As we worked our way close to whatever this was floating I noticed more and more thing floating. It turned out to be a school of pilot whales mating all over the place. I've never seen nothing like this before they would let us pull right up next to them and get some great photos of them.
I'm not sure how many whales there was but I am sure that it was at least 75 to 100 of them.
We did a total of 6 drops down 1750 feet to the bottom without a nibble and after talking to a couple of other boats that were out there doing the same without a bite we headed back for the port.
We did manage to catch one big barracuda on our way in but after catching that 300 pound blue marlin the barracuda just did not look quite so big (LOL)For a better look at all the photos taken today go to my photo gallery #7
Jim thanks for a great day of fishing I'll never forget and looking forward to fishing with you in January.
Fishing has been just unbelievable and we are seeing things off the coast of Fort Lauderdale we've never seen before so give us a call and let's do some deep sea fishing!!
Captain Taco (9540 764-4344 or toll free (877) Sea-4344
