Thursday we had our buddy Charley Britt who is our Ducks Unlimited party and his brother in law Will fishing with us. My son came along for the ride as well.Charley and Will wanted Billfish and no Mahi's. Each trip this year Charley has fished with us we have caught him at least 1 billfish. We were hoping Thursday would be the same for us.
Flat seas and no wind, I mean flat glassy seas all day long. 60 miles offshore and you could see your reflection in the water. Beautiful weed lines and fingers out past the hundred. Pretty damn fishing conditions is what Captain Brian took us to as he always does.
My son got to catch a few Mahi's right off the get go. Most of the Mahi's were Gaffers too. He would catch his fish and go back up on the bridge and hang out with THE BEAST.
Around 1:15 I saw a swirl behind the right flat. I ran over too it and picked it up and put it in free spool. Just then another swirl and he took it. I fed him and pushed up the drag and nothing, he had dropped it. Captain Brian says he is on me now. Of course he is So THE BEAST fed him and stuck him just like he always does. We got the stuff up and got Will the rod. Will went to work on him like a pro. When the fish was jumping out there it looked like a White marlin. About 10 minutes later we got the leader up. I took a wrap on it and he came up and went to jumping. He went right up the side of the boat and under the rigger and was coming back towards the boat so I let go. Captain Brian was already moving ahead pretty fast trying to stay in front of the fish. Once I let go he went back down for a couple minutes. Then he came back up and went to jumping right off the stern again. He put on the best show I have ever seen. One of the hottest fish ever IMO. After that he went down and stayed down for another 10 minutes. Will pushed the drag on up to full and worked on him hard trying to get him up. Once he came up we got the leader and he came right on up next to the boat and just swam there for us. Charley was taking pictures the entire time. He got some amazing shots of the fish jumping out of the water.
Hats off to my 12 year old son who videoed the entire thing. He did an awesom job on the camera. He has been on the last 5 trips with us and videoed the last 4 marlins we have caught and did a perfect job.
After we released the fish we looked around for another 45 mintues or so and then called it a day. It was another successful trip for the RUN-OFF. It was our 5th trip in a row that we have caught a billfish. Hopefully we can keep the streak up. It was Will's first ever Blue Marlin so that made this trip even more special for all of us.
We ended up with 10 Mahi's and 1 Blue Marlin release
http://videos.sportfishermen.com/members/action/viewvideo/4549/RUN_OFF_7_3_Blue_Marlin/?ref=Osead
Run-Off Sportfishing
Morehead City, NC
