Today we had Al from Maine and his wife's husband I mean brother in law (LOL) Ode from Punta Gorda Vermont out for a full day off shore looking for dolphin fish and sword fish.
We got an early start and once we got to about 400 feet of water we slowed down the boat and put out some trolling baits hopping to find some dolphin fish on our way out. We were all up on the fly bridge just shooting the breeze when I notice a piece of debris floating. At this point I was the only one who knew that there was a piece of debris floating ahead of us but I told everyone to go down stairs and get ready because I had a feeling that we might run into some fish soon.
As we made our first pass by here they came dolphin fish came gray hounding across the surface headed straight for our baits. In a matter of seconds we were hooked up with three dolphins at the same time. We got them all in the boat and headed for our second pass by. And once again here they came from everywhere attacking our baits.
After a good half an hour of this passing by and hooking these dolphins I knew that we were never going to get out to the sword fish grounds if we kept this up.
So I called in one of my friends Captain Rick aboard the Happy Day Today and let him know the fish were over here and they were biting well. Once Captain Rick came over and seen where we were catching these fish under we turned the boat and continued our journey off shore toward the sword fish grounds.
We did manage to catch a couple more dolphin on our way out but this time I just kept heading east instead of turning around to see where these fish had come out of.
A couple of hours later we had finally arrived to the grounds we were looking for and in came all of our trolling baits and out went the sword fish bait.
Our first drop was 1775 feet all the way to the bottom. Within the first 5 min we thought we had a bite but it turned out to be snagged on the bottom. (RATS) I turned the boat east of where the line was going straight down and by some miracle or maybe it was an act of god but it came unhooked and that in its self was a great catch considering that if we had not gotten it out we would have lost a $50 dollar lead, $45 dollar light a couple of $6 dollar swivels not to mention a very big portion of this very expensive wire line that was on the reel.
Ok so we got all of our tackle and bait back so we decided to run a couple of miles to the south and try it again. This time while we did not get fouled up into the bottom we did not get a bite either.
We moved again got our bait down and then we watched the rod slowly bend over. (O no not the bottom again) Not this time because within seconds not only was the rod bent over but line started screaming off the reel. (WE WERE HOOKED UP)
I'm sure that if we could have seen a video of us we looked like four little kids about to open our Christmas gifs. We were jumping around and high fiving each other.
It was a very slow back and forth tug a war for an hour and a half and by the time our lead came up we had every gaff, harpoon, and ropes ready for him. We knew by the way this fish pulled line off the reel at will it was going to be a monster.
All of a sudden this SEA MONSTER broke the surface and it turned out to be a 12 to 14 foot thresher shark. At first we were so surprised but truth be told I know there was a bit of a disappointment. We were all looking forward to sliding a monster sword fish threw the door.
But that is fishing and let's face it we caught a pretty incredible fish and we all watched him swim away in good shape and we already had more than enough eating fish in the box.
Ode and Al thanks again and we are looking forward to fishing you again in Jan.
Fall is here and so are the king fish, dolphin fish and sail fish so give us a call and get away for a weekend to South Florida before the winter air fares go thru the roof and let's do some deep sea fishing aboard the HOOKED UP.
Captain Taco (954) 764-4344 or toll free (877) SEA-4344
