Fished the Nauti Girl, a 45' Hatteras, out of Marlin Quay Marina, Garden City, SC (just below Myrtle Beach) on a 12 hour gulf stream trip.  We planned to troll the stream for pelagics and then move in to do some bottom fishing.  All enjoyed Nauti Girl's air conditioned salon and staterooms which were very nice for snoozing during the 3 hour trip each way at 19-20 kts. 

First bite of the day was w/in 10 minuutes of deploying the trolling lines. 1st mate Steve identified a billfish, apparently a marlin, which crashed on the long line and cut cleanly thru 100 lb fluorocarb leader. The splash on the surface was terrific, so this may have been a sizable fish.

Although there had been a very strong weed line present for the last few days, the wind changed direction the previous day and destroyed it.  As a result, there were weeds scattered everywhere - no clean H2O in sight.  1st mate Steve had a full day of work ahead of him keeping the baits clean and cleaared. 

We did spot one large pad of weeds that hadn't borken up.  When we slipped in close we could see 4 or 5 dolphin under it.   We rigged up a spinning reel and immediately hooked up our first fish for Wayne.  Grady hooked up one on the fly rod, but the 12 lb. tippet broke when Steve tried to haul the fish over the stern.  We caught a few more, but none had a fly in its mouth so we're sure we left one for next time.

We resumed trolling and had a few short strikes, two lines with lure & bait bitten off, and one planer robbed of its bait.  We found one lonely dolphin and quickly boated him.  And we did manage one 10 lb. plus blackfin on a ballyhoo w/blue islander to give Steve the big fish of the day.