Another Report from the Washington

[Talbot29]

I had Jim, Wes and Wes' daughter Emma on the Got Fish Too? on Saturday 10/4. The plan was to run to the tip of the Washington and stop when we hit the warm water. I pulled the thottles back when the temp went to 74. We were in 35 fathoms and it was about 8:30am. We put a mixed spread out looking for tuna, wahoo and marlin. Shortly after getting the spread out we had 3 fish pulling dragged like there's no tomorrow. We could tell they were Wahoo from the high pitched zzzzzzzzzz coming from the reels. Emma was on the first rod (the one with the wire); it was her first offshore trip and she was connected to the biggest fish she has ever seen. The other 2 were mono so we sacrificed a couple of Illanders to the Wahoo gods.

Once we got Emma's "largest fish ever in her life" in the box I circled back around to see if we could get some more and we got hit on the shotgun. After some slight pulls the line parted. The chaffing looked like it was from a bill but you never know with all those wahoo out there. Seconds after the line broke, I saw a white marlin molesting the rasta squid bar on the right short. I yelled to Jim and he grabbed the flat line (dink on a circle) and dropped it back. The white switched over to the squid chain just ahead of the bar and Emma jumped on the teaser reel and snatched it away from whitey. Jim dropped the bait right on by the marlin as it chased the teaser. It was like poetry in motion as Jim brought the bait right up to the fish and fed it just as the squid chain was pulled away. He came tight only to find nothing on the end, dropped it again and found the right spot on the second try. After a nice dance with whitey we released it. We caught 2 more Wahoo in the same area and lost several others to bite offs. Here are some pictures from the trip...









We also had a visitor hitch a ride for a short time. It's amazing how fearless these little creatures.



I fished with Jim on his Carolina Classic 35, Magic Moment on Sunday in the same general area and we ended up going home with plenty of clean but skunk scented ice. We only had one short run from a Wahoo and a pulled hook to show for our efforts. I guess the Judge won the Judge/Carolina Classic for this weekend and what a beautiful weekend at that!