had an interesting day of first today. Had Nico, JR and Jimmy Speads and Jeff onboard today. First time all year without an experienced crew (excepth Nico of course). JR is the good luck charm. He caught the first blue marlin on my boat, first big eye as well. Caught some dophin on the balls for dinner but The guys wanted to catch a billfish and some tuna. Had the bars out inshore of the washington when a boil occurs on the left short rasta bar. I drop back the flat and hook a white. Jeff gets his first white marlin ever.
Well that was the first white marlin any of them had seen and they were stoked so we rerigged everything for white. I made a dropper chain of 5 big heavy's the night before and put it out on the right teaser. 5 minutes and a white pops up on the big heavy teaser. He wont come off. JR slowly reels in the teaser and the fish is hot on it all the way to the boat. I put the pitch bait on its nose and the fish slaps at it and knocks the pait BACK IN THE BOAT! that is how close he is to the boat. we pull the teaser in and feed him the left flat. Fish eats and now Jimmy has his first white marlin.
We Bert Rogers hooked up to a slop white so we shoot over there to take a couple shots. Congrats bert!
Miss a couple throughout the day and I figure we start trolling home looking for some tuna. So we put the rasta bars back out and Jimmy starts yelling about a fin behind the rasta bar. He starts retrieving the bar and we feed him a naked dink and now JR has his first white ever
Now for the bad "first". Put em back out and had a gaggle of gaffers attack the spread. Don't know how this happened but a slob gaffer attacked the green bar and the pin didn't pop. Avet 50 exw shoots 10 feet in the air and is GONE Oh well nothing was going to ruin this day. 3 first time whitey converts and a bunch of dolphin for the day.
Nice picks Bill espeacially the handsome dude in the back of that Albemarle.
We went a frustrating 1 for 7 on the whites. Had 3 other than the one we released hooked and jumping. 5 good bites 2 sniffers. But with action like that (plus a box off bailers and 1 gaffer) I'm not complaining.
And the 1 we got was a true slob.As soon as Mike e-mails the pics I'll post and let the experts guestimate the wieght.
Just imagine if you had been white marlin fishing!
Another great trip on the Squidnation! Seems like a good warm up for next week.
Good luck to you Bill and all the rest of our Sportfishermen.com competitors at the WMO!
SeaBiscuit