Crew: Tim, Bobbie, Pat, Rick, JimF
Water Temp: 72-73
Tide: Unkown
Wind: South 5-10 knots
Conditions: A few clouds and less than 1 foot seas, Storm front coming
Fish Caught: 68" Mako, 10 Mahi 16"-36"
We have been watching the weather closely for a small boat overnight that included sharking and then trolling for tuna.
We left Galesferry Marina Friday 5:30pm with Bobbie, Pat, Rick and JimF with the plan to run as fast as possible to the little fish tales and put lines in at 8pm to try and capitalize on the last hour of the troll.
The seas were flat and the ride out was very nice!
(Click to Enlarge)The evening trolling resulted with only one knock down from a small mahi that quickly came unbuttoned.
Headed south under the moonlight until I found temperature and structure that I liked.
Set up for sharking at 10pm.
We put out a sword rod w/ big squid at the thermocline.
Two sharks rods, one with a bluefish fillet and one with mackerel.
A light stick in the water and we were ready.
As expected, sharking was slow at the edge, not the blue shark after blue shark one sometimes gets closer to land.
A few squid and small bait fish were our only company until 2:30 when a blue shark came to the bucket.
We are all looking over the side when the short bait starts to click. Quickly setting the hook, handing the rod off to Pat the fight was on.
Bobbie was the light girl and was instructed to follow the line to the fish.
This fish ran away from the boat at the water line peeling line quickly off of the reel. Bobbie managed to get the fish centered in the light about 40 yards from the boat and Jim and I both said out loud "MAKO".
The fish was breaching the water line and clearly not happy. Not that I have a ton of experience, but I have caught my share of short mako's, and I knew this one was a keeper!
A few typical mako runs, one under the boat, one around the motors and then Jim has his hand on the leader.
The fish is going berserk at the side of the boat, the head is far out of the water, it is equal with the gunnel!
"GAFF This fish" Jim yells!
I stick it with the fly gaff, and before I can even separate the head from the stick the fish does some aerobatics and now the leader, and rope are wrapped around the fly gaff, stuck in the fish, with the worse gaff job possible, just barely thru the skin.
Luckily, we quickly tail rope the fish and we have our mako! He measured 68 inches from nose to center of the fork, about 140 lb fish.
Now, what do you do with a mako at 3:30 am with still over twelve hours of fishing ahead on a 26 foot boat?
We gutted the fish.
(Click to Enlarge)And put it in the box!!! This Grady has one of the biggest fish boxes I have seen in boat of it size!
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(Click to Enlarge)We slowly head south to the tails, with a six rods spread out, giving the crew a chance to catch a few winks.
We made it to the tails well before sunrise and worked the tails and surrounding areas hard.
We saw whales, dolphins, mola, and really good signs of life in the 73 degree water.
This is one of three different species of whales we saw:
(Click to Enlarge)This species of whale came in a large school (we thought they were dolphins at first):
(Click to Enlarge)The hot lure was a small pink smoker on Jim's 16VSX!
Here is Bobbie dressed the part of a great fisher-woman!
(Click to Enlarge)We caught quite a few mahi like this one!
(Click to Enlarge)Here is Rick with another Mahi!
(Click to Enlarge)We called it a day early and was back at the marina by 3pm.
Shark, fish and boat cleaned by 5pm.
Total results were 10 mahi, one mako and five tired but happy fisherman!
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