A promise to take Daniel bottom fishing ended up being my first trip as a captain to overnight at the floaters.   We teamed up with family & fellow Team $EA $ICKNE$$ members Tim & Ben, and Donny & Jeremy.   With a seasoned crew, plenty of youthful exuberance, we dared to believe we’d head offshore to successfully chase monster wahoo & overnight at the floaters to find some tuna. 

After a 5 & 10 hour after work drives to Foley arriving in the wee hours Friday morning, we slept in to be sure everyone was safely alert for what we hoped would be tiring day & night of fishing ahead. We took our time loading the boat to be sure nothing critical was left behind.  Only after everyone was on board and we looked to clean the usual dirty footprints that we discovered in fact that we had left all our boat cleaning equipment back at the storage shed.  Envisioning lots of dolphin & tuna coming over the gunnels & covering the boat w/bloodshed, a quick trip to retrieve the boat brush was made. 

We stopped in the pass for bait, but found nothing around the bridge pilings.  The seawall and entrance markers weren’t any more generous, neither was the whistle buoy.  We then headed out a couple miles to some public wrecks sites, but our luck didn’t change.  Tim did find some small bait w/a cast net while we had run back to get the boat brush, so we weren’t entirely w/out baits.  Thus, we abandoned the sabiki’s confident that our supply of small pins supplemented with squid & frozen cigar minnows would keep us busy.

Based on a Roffer’s forecast, our plan was to head towards the Swingle reef to bottom fish, on to the edge to troll some nice color & temp. breaks, and end the day at Petronius to overnight for the tuna bite in some dark blue h20.  We plugged in the numbers, set the autopilot and enjoyed the 1-2’s.  Seeing the water color looking pretty fair, we stopped about 20 miles out, slowed our speed to 17 knots, and tossed over some high speed lures for wahoo.  We’d keep heading towards the Swingle reef area and stop see if we could find a bottom bite. 

We weren’t far from our intended waypoint when we saw a broken weed line.  While we had seen plenty of scattered grass on the way out, we hadn’t seen anything significant in size or the least bit organized.  Noticing our water temp and color were good also, we made the call, lines in.  Needing time to rig up our ballyhoo, we dropped in a Yozuri Bonito and Blade lure to troll in the prop wash and started trolling.  We added three ballyhoo on blue and white islanders to our spread, our port & long center behind birds.  Two minutes into the troll, the Yozuri Bonito is hit hard.  As the boys were up on the tuna tower and apparently in no hurry to man a rod, Tim grabs the pole and lands our first fish of the trip, a 17 lb. wahoo.  We were ecstatic that we had actually landed one of our intended species, and not exactly a small one. 

We had no problem convincing the boys to ready for the next fish.  We continued to work the weed line spending lots of time clearing lines of the scattered weeds.  We soon picked up a peanut dolphin which we released after Daniel posed for a few pictures with him. We continued to when our drag starts screaming and doesn’t stop.  It was as if we’d hooked a submarine going by at greater than 80 mph, clear the lines! CLEAR THE LINES!!!!!!!  I realized I do a good Barta impression, “Holy $%&#!, CLEAR THE FREAKIN LINES !!!!!”

After the initial chaos subsided, Jeremy settled in for a fight.  Unfortunately, he was fighting the rod & reel as much as the fish.  The rod butt would pop out of the fighting belt, often just as the fish would make another run.  Just as we had Donny positioning the boat to apply some pressure on the fish, it reacts and screams under the boat.  “Back, Back, Raise the Props, Raise the Engines.”  I hear Barta again.  We finally clear the line again, and make some progress as we see a flash of silver.  The fish spooked at the boat, but was obviously tired as Jeremy kept him easily turned. 

We finally see the fish is a hoo, and a fair one at that.  I get Jeremy in front, to bring the fish alongside ahead of me, so I can attempt the gaff from behind and over the top of the fish.  Its then I realize that this is not just a large wahoo, but a bombastro.  Fearing an errant gaff shot will lose a trophy fish, my heart races as the fish surfaces alongside.  With thoughts of having to explain a “release by gaff” on the fish of a lifetime, I reach and fire…..stoning the fish with a perfect gaff shot!  Thank you Lord! 

As I was heaving on the fish, and it slowly spilled over the gunnel, I realize I how big this fish really was. Thankfully I might add, as I probably would have choked the gaff shot if I had realized it was a 50 plus # fish.  No ground shrinkage here.  I truly didn’t realize the fish was so big. With everyone clear of the cockpit, the fish hits the deck, stretching nearly its full width.  If you recall, that noise you heard late Friday afternoon, was us.  I hadn’t heard so much hoopin’, hollerin’, & celebrating, at least not since the wife gave me the green light for the trip in the 1^st place.   We high fived, low fived, even made change!  All the while, scared to death the fish would come too, and destroy the cockpit.  Knowing it wouldn’t fit in the fish box, we had no choice but to hold it on the gaff until it subsided.  Thankfully, the fish never did flop, I assume the gaff must have been a lucky hit, possibly to the spine. OK, here's the actual video:

After plenty of pictures, attempts to hold the fish up in different positions, we grab the 60# boga (actually a Rapalla lock ‘n weigh) scale.  We realize the fish is too long.  Unless we hung it from the tuna tower, we didn’t have enough height to weigh the fish, and we were all convinced it was much larger than 60# anyway.  We put a tape on the fish and it measures just over 71” long, with almost a 30” girth.  Guess’s ranged 70-90#’s, we did find a scale at Zeke’s 24 hours later and got a certified weight there, 74.4#’s. Figuring loss of fluids, we probably had a live weight closer to the 80# if we had gotten to a scale sooner.  We all took turns posing with the fish, and had lots of fun seeing Jeremy struggle to hold up & pose with the fish by himself.  We reluctantly had to cut & fold the tail of the fish, just to get it to fit it in our fish box. 

We finally got trolling again, excited as to what would show next.  Unfortunately, we only found a never ending supply of grass to foul our baits.  We head over to Petronius to catch the last hour of daylight.  We find a scattered weed line just off the rig.  Our dreams of skying tuna weren’t realized, the fish just weren’t cooperating.  We did score a 7# dolphin, and a tuna just at dusk, but certainly not the size fish we were planning on.   We continued to troll a while after dark, biding our time ‘til the blackfin would show.  We fished the rig until 10:30 or so, never getting a bite on diamond jigs at depth.   With a tired crew, we headed over to the mooring buoy to tie up for the night. 

We awoke at 5 to find several boats chunking around us, but we never saw anyone bowed up.  We ate a quick bite, then setup for the troll.  Other than switching the Blade to a stretch 30, we kept our presentation the same, just ran the back baits a bit further back.  While we didn’t see anyone else hook up, we did see bait surface and small tuna free jumping, but not the size everyone was looking for.  We decide to move over to the triple rig to see if the weedline had moved that direction.  

While running at a 25 knots, we hit something hard.  The engines both jump out the water, we come to an immediate halt.  The engines are both racing at high RPM’s.  I scramble looking for water, but don’t see the hull has been punctured.  I open hatches and confirm no water, everything looks reasonably dry, we have apparently been spared an immediate sinking.  We don’t see anything in the water.  We raise the engines, and they are intact, and appear clear of obstruction.  Hmmm, what the ???? Restart the engines and try to motor forward, the engines cavitate. Hmmm again??? Raise the engines again, this time all the way, and see a 3”x3”x8’ board which had been wedged between the engines & the stern.  Now seeing what we hit, we do another check on the engines & hull, no apparent damage, no taking on water.  Feeling we had escaped near tragedy, we celebrated our tremendous fortune to be so richly blessed twice in one trip – 1^st – fish, 2^nd – not having to use our life raft 50 miles from shore, and face the mothers of the children on board whenever we finally get home!

On to the triple rig (think that’s what its called, looks like two rigs connected by a walkway).  We drop in our lines about a 1 mile out, and instantly have a drag scream, but no fish.  We reel in ½ a ballyhoo.  We continue to lose ballyhoo to short strikes and brief hookups.  Daniel reels in a couple barracuda, and realizing our ballyhoo supply was dwindling fast, we decide to move closer in and look for our weed line from the day before.

We stop several times on big grass patches, but no dolphin would show.  Finally about 15 miles in, we find a scattered weed line and give it a troll. Again, no luck.  With only one ballyhoo left, we pick up again, deciding to head into to fish a couple rigs in the 20-30 mile range.  We get about 10 miles from our intended rig, and find the mother of all weed lines – long, w/huge patches, & a very well defined edge.  With hopes high, we deploy our spread, actually re-rigging some of our old ballyhoo I had saved for chum. Our drag screams, Daniel is ready for the fight.  The fish splashes on the surface, but doesn’t take any line.  We can’t figure out what it is, doesn’t fight like anything in particular.  When it finally comes along side, we realize it’s a foul hooked bonito.  We’re all more than a little disappointed.

We hit the rig, but our luck doesn’t change.  We do chum up some small to medium grey to tan fish, perhaps mangrove snapper?, but no bites.  Realizing our day was going to be long, pulling out the boat, cleaning, etc.., and that we still have a fish to weigh, we head in, satisfied we had all challenged ourselves, found fortunate sea’s, shared the fish of a lifetime for all us, and had been spared what could have been a horrible situation if our hull had been compromised by the timber we hit.  We can’t wait to do it again, just after a little needed rest!