Originally Posted by
backman
The moral of the story is - no matter how bad the day is going, no matter how poor this fishing may be, do not let up, stay focused, pay attention and be ready.
We left Falmouth at 3 AM for a long slow slog down to the Lanes into a 3-4' slow headsea that only allowed us to make 21 knots.
We put in at a piece of debris, raised and lost a mahi and that was it for a long slow grind south by southwest with no life and no action. We trolled S w/in 12 miles of the edge before following my great circle route west, then northwards.
Excitement for the day was a school of porpoise and a 3' mako pup release that had eaten a jet head.
Most action of the day was on a floating tire surrounded by mahi and triggerfish. We could not buy a strike.
My crew were from On The Water, had never fished with me before and were enjoying the day regardless of the slow action. Like me they were watching the spread and the water - a no nap crew.
11, 12, 1 PM and nothing as we worked north, finally back up near the bottom lane we found some rips, some flyers and some bare, bare signs.
Happy mackerel on the surfae, we hammered them, freejumping mahi off a flyer, we hammered that, sitting storm petrels, we hammered them also to no avail.
1:30, very grey day so after each flyer set I'd duck down below to use the radar to find the next set of flyers. The rookie crew was watching the spread and helping me watch the water. Next flyer at 1/2 mile - Jimmy and I up above, looking for a sign. Dipping pretrels, perhaps a couple pieces of bait on one side; I swerved to port to aim for the scant pieces of life.
Snap, something popped below. No rods were down. Kevin - 1st trip offshore, 12 hr's into a long day looking, seeing, calling - "marlin, marlin". Jimmy - scrambling down, yelling drop back the ballyhoo which Kevin did perfectly.
I saw the fin anf shoulders come off the ballyhoo and settle behind my private label Offshore Innovations bar. I yelled down the kevin "he's on the bar, crank it". 2 cranks and it went under; no drag going, but the white wallowed out of the water half up with a face full of green squid. "tight, tight...ar..he's off".
It's so easy to give up and complain; its not easy to bang on after a failure. We had not yet reached the flyer and I wasn't ready to give up. I waggled the boat, throttle jockeyed; down, up, back to settle into my proper RPM range, looking back, watching, hoping.
"He's back - Jimmy and I saw a wish, a prayer, that tiny fin way out on the long. Turn, jockey, wiggle and waggle, drop back another ballyhoo, everything we had went into those next 30 seconds as the white was everywhere in the spread This one was fin and shoulders high as it terrorized into the spread, went left, fell back right and as i watched came in and ate the Black Bart Tuna candy on the long starboard rigger.
The rigger didn't pop because the marlin was swimming with the lure; Jimmy cranked and set, Kevin popped the line out of the clip and 12 hr's after we left the dock, 3 hours from home, grey rainy day - we had our chance finally.
We'd never fished together; Kevin had never been offshore, Jimmy had never caught or billed a marlin but we made it work like a well oiled team. This was a jumper; easily 8 or 10 series of springboard series of pop ups, 2-3 leaps per series, each ending with a wallowing thrash and slash. Kevin got the cockpit cleared, we kept the fish tight as Jimmy worked it in.
I ended up driving, leadering and billing which also worked perfectly, though Mr White got me pretty good with one slash as I went from leader to bill. Pictures at the boat, 172 of them! Then a picture perfect release, move from neutral to idle, 5 minute swim to bring color and kick back, back to neutral, stand him up straight, a push and he tailed away as we watched.
2:15 - quit on a high, so what if its grey and rainy, so what if we didn't get tuna, all 3 of us up in the tower, 24 knots, rain pelting our faces - what a finish!
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