| YT, Lea, Ashton, Lindsey, Clark, Jay and I headed offshore
Friday evening in pursuit of billfish. The NYATI has had a tremendous run
of success on marlin and sails, so we were feeling optimistic. We bombed
out to our night fishing grounds, hoping to pull something sweet off the
bottom. We had some live perch, so I dropped one down to the bottom (350+
feet). After a couple minutes, I brought up a nice blackfin, which was odd
given the depth I was fishing.
Jay and I stayed up as the "night crew", catching blue runners.
I put a 16" runner down on the bottom. It was quickly blasted by a big Amberjack.
The next morning, we got up and started trolling. At about 7:00
a.m., one of the reels started screaming. I grabbed it and we soon had a
nice wahoo on the boat.
About 30 minutes later, another reel started screaming. I grabbed
it and handed it off to Clark. This is what we wanted-a solid blue marlin.
Clark did a tremendous job, and we soon had Clark's first blue landed.
As we brought her in, she was "lit up" an electric blue on her
fins, which shows up pretty good on the picture.
After the release, we continued to troll, and Ashton picked up a nice dolphin.
A couple hours later, our big marlin bait on the big reel 15
feet off the stern got whacked. Thom hopped in the chair, and we were all
thinking it was the big blue. Well, it turned out to be a beautiful 30#+
dolphin, which went into the box.
We continued trolling the open sea (no weedline or structure).
An hour or so later, Lindsey picked up another solid dolphin.
This was followed by a double hookup on wahoo, which were swiftly
brought to the gaff by Lea and Clark.
At about 8:00 p.m., one of the starboard lines got nailed. Ashton
hopped into the chair and proceded to whip a solid 50 pound class Wahoo.
That night, we were hoping to pound on the tuna, but had no
such luck, even using some big flying fish caught by Jay in the castnet.
Our efforts with diamond jigs only resulted in blue runners (on every drop).
I put another runner down and caught a solid 100# dusky shark, which was
released.
Jay also caught a nice 15# dolphin on a flyer (no picture because everyone
was asleep).
The next morning, Thom saw 2 sailfish basking under the weed,
but they would not take a bait. We had one nice blue on for a second, but
it threw the lure. The long (130 mile) trek back was pretty uneventful (one
mahi and one blackfin). We ended up with a solid haul of big fish.
As always, thanks YT and Lea for another great trip on the marlin boat NYATI!
- OldSalt |
