On Saturday, we had John Lappin and his sons aboard for a full day offshore. John has been fishing his whole life and has never been out to the deep, so his wife gave him the excellent birthday present of a day of offshore fishing. We started out at the break in 300 fathoms straight east of Rudee in 74 degree water. Our first couple of bites were small little skipjack tunas. After a little wheeling around, we were able to find an area where the white marlin seemed to be roaming. We had one white marlin come up and follow our baits for a very long time, but despite our best efforts, he would not bite anything. This fish was ONLY interested in our teaser. We even lifted the teaser out of the water for a few minutes and the fish dissappeared, only to return as soon as the teaser came back into the water. Everyone on the boat got to watch the marlin though and its always good to see them.
In the same area, we found a very large log floating on the surface. This log had been in the gulf stream for a great deal of time and was totally covered with barnacles and mussels. To find something like this is always a goldmine and it ended up making our day. We caught all the nice sized gaffer dolphin that we wanted off this thing and when it was all said and done, we had a box full of 10-25 pound dolphin. We spent a lot of time there and everyone aboard was enjoying catching the mahi mahi. Another boat pulled up and jigged a couple of wahoo out from under the log and caught a bunch of dolphin as well.
After the dolphin fishing, we did a couple more circles looking for marlin and started heading inshore. We had heard of a scattered tuna and wahoo and even a couple marlins being caught in 50-70 fathoms. We were in 400 and had only seen one all day. As luck would have it, we did get some bites inshore. We caught a some mahi. Then we saw another white marlin come into the spread. This one did the same as the other one and went straight for the teaser, but I was able to switch this fish off the teaser and onto a bait. I hooked the fish from up top, passed the rod down, and John proceeded to catch the white marlin on ultra lite tackle. The fight took about 20 minutes and we had several jumps out of the fish before getting the release. We trolled for a few more minutes, picking up a skipjack or two before heading home.
Traditionally when someone catches their first marlin, it is customary to throw the guy who caught it in the water when you get back to the marina. I don't know why we do it , but it is supposed to be good luck. Well, these guys made no exception and John's sons threw dear old dad in the water at the marina. All in all these guys had a great time and we look forward to fishing with them again in the future.
Sounds like your party had a great time. Jigging wahoo out from under a floating tree, I wonder how that was done. Dare I ask what is your secret teaser
Yeah no secret. Its a squidnation 7'' rasta bar. Also pulling two squidnation daisy chains with moldcrafts behind them as teasers. For every ten fish I have been seeing 8 will be on the bar, or on the baits just beside the bar. Every now and again one will come on the dredge or the chains.
Ive been noticing that there arent any schools of bonitas or other "fish" type bait around. Lots of squid marks though and every meat fish I catch out there is coughing up squids. Makes sense to pull squid type baits and patterns. Its been raising fish very well too. Could probably just pull 4 hookless bars, no chains, and no dredge and do just as well.
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