Went out yesterday with some friends who have been itching to get offshore with me. The weather report looked favorable so off we went. Of course, the seas were sloppy all the way out with a stiff 20+kt NE wind. Never did lay down as they were predicting on the weather. But, we forged ahead in the 6+ ft slop hoping we would be rewarded with some fish. Just NE of the Cigar in about 30 fathoms, we were immediately rewarded with a nice 36" king fish on the spreader bar. I worked south towards the 100 fathom curve east of the cigar and found some 74 degree water, nice 10# mahi hits my wahoo lure. Another in the boat. Then a bit further south, now starting to work west back towards the cigar, we get a surprise as we are working out some line tangles due to all the wind. My shotgun goes off like we hooked a mack truck. Within about 1 minute, we are nearly spooled at full drag on the 50W. I turned the boat around and gave chase...the beauty of a center console. Never did see him jump, so we thought we might have a huge big eye, especially since he hit the bird. After about an hour, we see the beast.....BLUE MARLIN. Absolutely huge. A some point during the fight, he got tail wrapped, so once seeing that we kept the pressure on the fish as light as possible to try to avoid drowning him. Got him along side the boat and took the hook out of the top of his hard palate (amazingly solid hookup) and also removed the line from his tail. He wasn't looking to good, so we revived him for some time. This took 4 men to do.......fish measured just over 8 ft from fork to lower jaw, and 10ft in total. Girth was 6+ Ft as my tape was only four foot. An absolutely Huge and Beautiful fish!!!!! We got to spend about 15min with him before he started kicking a bit and we let him go. He initially turned on his side and I didn't think he would make it, but then he righted himself and a few tail kicks later he dove out of sight. I hope he recovers...I think he will.

Well, we kept fishing and a little while later were rewarded with a nice YFT about 30#. In the boat he went. Then we get cut off repeatedly by a pack of wahoo. Of course didn't hit any of my wire lures. A little later, another nice size kingfish again comes tight. In the boat as well, and we decided to call it a day.

Overall, another great day. Great variety of fish and a decent amount of meat to take home. Not to mention a blue. So, it made it worth it to go out in the nasty wind and seas. It did lay down to 4-5 in the afternoon and we were able to make 31kts home, so at least we enjoyed the ride in.


James

Oh yeah,

Got some blue marlin pics and others I will post later tonite.

James

Jimmy...you officially get the Brass Balls award for fishing yesterday...and glad you were rewarded with a fine catch....Great job....wow, it must have been tough fishing yesterday for sure !!!!.......Bob

Bob,

The seas were disgusting for sure. Sometimes being stupid pays off! I will say though, that I now love my boat more than ever. Never felt unsafe and it handled extremely well. Even on the way out we averaged about 25 knots and nobody was pissing blood today

I did not see a single other boat out either in person or on radar, so that was actually kind of nice and peaceful.

James

Hard core for sure. Big payoff.
congrats !
Todd

Way to go James!!! Great pay off for sure!! Congrats!!

"Great Job" Jimmy.............Way to "Tuff" it out!!!!!!!

A few pics of the blue:

Nice job Jimmy Good day on a sloppy day.

VooDoo

congrats jimmy! you are having one heck of a offshore season!

Greg called me Saturday and said you were going out and did we want to hook up with you? I said no after checking the weather and how far we'd have to run to catch fish. Glad you got a very worthwhile trip! Looks like it was worth the pounding. Congrats

Nice catch!!! That would have been tough on a crew without the great fishing you found. Sounds like I need to stretch mine 10' as we didn't get further out than 10 miles during our week at PC. What a dif that 33' would have been for us.