Haulover Small Boat Report

[GrandSlam]

There is a years worth of information here. Fortunately, for me I am moving my boat up north to Fort Lauderdale and pulling the boat out of the marina. I am going to trailer the boat around for the next year and explore the S. Florida area with a new mission and a new blog.

BTW thank you to everyone at Haulover Marina for three years of great weekends.

[GrandSlam]

I have not written in a while. Since writing last my wife and I have a baby daughter and my fishing time has become baby time.

Everytime my I drive by the ocean my wift sees me looking at all the boats and the water. He knows my heart. This week she said, why don't you go our fishing agian. "I will think about it," I said. Yippee!

So today I went out. I was hoping for Dolphin, but I settled for a tuna. I headed out of Haulover (yeah, I am back at Haulover) about 7 AM, bought some live pilchards and headed out. The waves were about 3-6 feet. If you have not been in the ocean in a month I must admit. I was all about safety today. Especially, with a small boat.

I headed out to about 185 feet and began my drift. At first, chicken size dolphin jumped all over the bait, but nothing hooked. I continued to drift and ended up at about 110 feet deep. I hooked a fish.

I hooked a tuna at 110 feet. the fish took lots of line from me. I have learned my lesson over the years. Keep the pressure on the line. Deep the fish dove. The fish exhausted itstelf and I began to real it in.

At this time, another boat was heading out for the day and drove past me. They saw that I had something big on my line and they must have though that the fishing was good today. I hope they did as well.

It felt like I was pulling up a 50lb fish. After about 10 minutes I landed the fish with my gaft. Blood all over the place. My first tuna.

I was exhausted and a little tired after the battle. Yet, I was excited. I decided to head home with my prized possession. When I got back to the ICW, I called my wife to meet me at the dock with the camera.

The big debate was if we could eat the fish. Here is my opinion. It is good, not great. If you can, I think you should find a way to bleed the fish after you catch it because there is a lot of blood and this can impact the taste. When I cut the fist I did find two loins and cut some nice size medalions.

I just watched Youtube and saw some guy cut the fish up. I wished I had watched that. With the left over scraps and undesirable pieces I baked the pieces and made some cat food for the cat. He loves it and eats every scrap. His name should be tuna.

[GrandSlam]

Caught three tuna today off a weedline in 135 feet of water this morning at 7:30 AM with live pilchards. Using heavy florocarbon leader with small hooks.

I had two lines in the water and could see the tuna on the fish finder. I think they like to sit at about 30 to 60 feet deep a watch from below. I threw several pilchard into the water to make it look like a school of bait and it worked every time.

All three fish were about 15 minutes apart. After the last fish I heard a barking sound. It stunded me because I thought I was alone out there. A school of real dolping came through. I wonder if they were after my bait. Anyhow, it was a nice ending to a good morning.