Tracy and Keith from Orlando spent the morning of the 13th fishing on the Hooked Up. These two really wanted some good eating fish so we started out trolling, looking for some dolphin fish, but there were none to be found, so we went in closer on the reef and did manage to catch 4 nice kingfish. Kings are ok to eat but we really wanted to catch them something a little better eating than kings so we went in on a ledge and slow trolled a bait right near the bottom and it paid off, they ended up with a real nice grouper for dinner.
On the 14th, Stephan and Ava and their son Steve, who had just gotten back from a cruise through the Caribbean, thought they would spend a peaceful relaxing day on the water with the Hooked Up crew. Well they were in for quite a surprise, we started out trolling the reef and not only did Ava hook into a big fish but after reeling it in she grabbed the leader and wired the big bomber bonito in herself. Now Ava is in her sixty's and the leader is about 60 feet long; talk about one tough lady, and man did she have a ball doing it. After that we were not catching much on the troll and I had heard of a couple sailfish being hooked up so we decided to try for sails. Well we had no live baits on board so we decided to go to one of the buoys and see if we could catch a few live baits. It turned out the problem was not catching the live baits, they were biting good, the problem was getting Ava to stop catching them so we could go and see if we could trade them in on something bigger. I've never seen someone have so much fun catching such little fish. But we did manage to finally pull her away from the rod and switch over to fishing with the live bait. We had the live baits out for about 30 minutes when Ava's son Steve came up on the bridge with me and started hinting about going back to the bait fishing. I explained to him that we would if that was really what he wanted but that the water looked real good to me and I felt that our chances of catching a sailfish looked pretty good. Well he agreed and about 2 minutes after our talk there she was and this was a big sailfish. Well guess who jumped right in the chair that's right Ava had the rod in her hand in the blink of an eye. This fish was not quite so easy for her to catch, as a matter a fact we had to tell to hang in there the fish was close(we were lying) this fish had peeled off so much line it took more than 30 min for her to catch it. Way to go Eva, but hold on, we were not done yet. My mate Glen said well what should we do now?? I told him to put the live baits back out. He tried to but before he had the 3rd one out yep you guessed it there was another sailfish. This time it was Stephen's turn and he jumped in the chair and we were Hooked Up again. This time we did not have so many baits in the water so we were able to back down on the fish and caught this one in about 20 min. At this point Glen looked at me and he could tell by the look in my eyes that I wanted the live baits right back out there. And it took about 3 minutes and yep we were Hooked Up again. Now Steve would get his turn and yes he also caught his.
We had our work cut out for us on the 15th; Captain Greg had 6 of his regular customers who over the years have become good friends of his, on board. It seems, whenever we take out friends or celebrities we can't seem to catch anything worthwhile and to make matters worse we had Clark and his wife Whitney from New York with us and we can never seem to catch Whitney a nice fish when she's aboard. The others who joined us were Bob and his wife Marty from Kentucky, and Dave and Gary from Arizona a couple of Greg's hunting buddies. So, as you can see, catching was pretty important today. We have been having a pretty good sailfish bite and Captain Greg knew that all the boats would be fishing for them so he decided to run way to the north where none of the other boats were fishing. First we set out the kites and started waiting and nothing, time just kept going by with no bites, but Captain Greg was being as patient as one could be, He kept saying they are going to eat before it gets dark and sure enough their he was on one of our kite baits and fight was on. Dave was the first to jump in the chair and he finally caught his first sailfish, before we knew it Gary was fighting one and yes he also caught his. Well half the battle was done but there was that Whitney and she has always been a tough one to catch fish for. Well it didn't take long and YEA she was Hooked Up But this fish was not willing to just give up It took all Whitney had in her to land this one but when it was all done she won (or should I say we won). Congratulations to all of you and thanks for a great afternoon.
On the 16th we had repeat customers Jake and Mike both from right here in South Florida, and they were entertaining their # 1 client Mike from Michigan and his girlfriend Kimberly from Mississippi. We started out trolling the reef looking to just bend the rod on some kingfish or some bonitos and we caught one bonito right away. I heard a couple of the other boats hooking up with some sailfish , So I was starting to wander if I had made the right choice by trolling; Then I looked up and saw a big school of flying fish take off for no apparent reason; Then I saw why, there was a sailfish chasing them right toward my boat. Well at that point my mind was made up we were switching over to kite fishing and I wanted to do the switch right away. We got everyone to grab a rod and start clearing all the dead baits out of the water and at the same time I was busy putting out both kites. I don't think it took more than 3 minutes to change from dead baits to live bait kite fishing and after that it did not take more than 3 minutes and we were Hooked Up. Mike wasted no time jumping in the chair and the fight was on, it took about 15 minutes and Mike had it to the boat. We still had 3 baits in the water while we were fighting Mike's fish and it was not long before we were Hooked Up again, Now it was Jake's turn and it took him about 15 minutes to catch his sailfish too. Well at this point everyone was pretty happy and the pressure was off of us or so everyone thought. I had other plans, I wanted to see if we could catch more than all the other boats, so I yelled down from the bridge, you guys can start celebrating after the bait are back out. So we got the baits right back out there but there was no time for celebrating we now had 2 sailfish Hooked Up and they were both going in separate directions. I yelled down to my mate Glen to start clearing the other lines, we had our work cut out for us now. Glen started clearing one of the other lines but he had a problem, the more he tried to reel it in the more the line was going out. You guessed it we now had three (3) that's right 3 sailfish on at the same time and all 3 of them were going in separate directions. (WHAT TO DO??) Well I wanted to back down on the fish that was closest but the other two fish had too much line out and I was afraid that we would run out of line; So we backed down on the one that was the furthest away and gained some line on him then when we had enough line on the reel we went after the closest one and got our quick pictures and cut the leader on him. We went after the next closest next and got him and then at last we were able to back down on the last one. Holy Cow what a fun day of fishing and we did all of this in less than 3 hours of sail fishing.
On the 18th we set out for a morning of deep sea fishing with Susan and her husband Eddy and their son Luke all from Wachapregue Virginia, where they have a charter boat. We decided to go right to it and see if we could catch them a sailfish or two, so we put out the kites with some live baits suspended from them and started waiting. Well we never did get a shot at any sailfish but we did manage to catch 3 nice dolphin fish, which is what I think they wanted in the first place! I don't think they catch many dolphins up in Virginia. Thanks for a great time guys and tight lines up there in Virginia.
Today, the 20th, Mark from the Carolinas, Louie and Gram from New Jersey and Richard from Montana spent the morning fishing aboard the Hooked Up. Nobody was catching any fish trolling the reef and off shore trolling was dead as well so we figured we'd go for the gusto and see if we could be one of the lucky boats out there today to catch a sailfish. Well we waited and waited but all of a sudden there it was and it was a real nice sailfish. It looked at the bait for a few seconds and then all of a sudden ate it and we were Hooked Up. It took about 15 minutes for the gang to catch the sailfish.
