Saturday--Decided to do a run with a Captain friend of mine and a few other fishing friends on board Barbed Wire out of OCMD. We left at 5am and headed to the Hot Dog Trolling. After battling rain, rain, and more rain decided to head for the Baltimore Canyon. Trolled around with a only a bend rod for about 10 seconds in the morning and not a single pull all day. We worked hard despite the terential down pours (Grundens were the oufit of choice for the day). We tried every color combo and every lure and good looking bally we had in our trick box but still couldn't get a knockdown. The ride out we passed about three bait balls and fish busting. We were 10 miles away from the canyon and decided to push on. We passed many good signs about 1 mile before our spread was out and yet nothing was hittin. We pulled lines out around 5pm and headed for the barn.
upon returning to the dock we noticed the gentleman beside us were unloading a 100+ bluefin, and made quick of getting some numbers.
Day TWO------------Headed to the undisclosed location around 4am. Different Crew--myself, Capt. Dean, His son Nick, Moe and Tony. We were determined to grab our BFT and have an early day heading home.
We did three drifts over the lump and nothing. We had 2 deep on the bottom and one about half way down. just as we were finishing our drift and about to pull the lines for another drift. I noticed the black ballon (we picked a black balloon to mix it up abit) was moving quite fast back toward us! It looked to me as if a butterfish had been a nice treat for a shark!!!
I told Capt. Dean fish on as he enjoys hooking them up.
By the time he got to the rod---This back balloon was skipping across the water in 10ft spans about 100mph.
Two seconds later the fish aired towards the bow-----------------------------------------------------------------------
BIG blue Marlin, and I do mean big!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We get the angler Tony situated on the Penn 50tw, and its game on! Another run about a football field length away from us now and we all just looked at each other in aw as to how big this pretty lady was!!
Three hours on stand up gear, a 50, a butterfish with a circle hook, and backing down for these three hours, we have her along side for a release.
What a fish!
I would like to say that this was definitly a outstanding crew, and we all worked together to finally do everything right. These two gentlemen being Capt. Dean and Moe have taught me so much in my offshore career---Many thanks to these guys who worked to get this done!!!
This is only half the story. We estimated the girth to be about 70 in and the length at least 10.5 feet. This would put this fish at 600-700 range.
After fighting and backing down for this 3 hours it went unnoticed as to the amount of water we were taking in. After the smoke cleared and are highs went to lows as we noticed the boat sitting about six inches lower in the water than it should have been. Looked down below and about 2 ft of water was in the downstairs galley. For some unknown reason are bilge pumps 2 of them were not doing there job!!! I swam waded in thigh high water below and managed to get the life jackets out and help Capt. Dean give our position to the Coast Guard for a distress Mayday call. The other worked with buckets to bail the water. After a while and many, many buckets later we were out of the clear. We managed to get the pumps back on and were heading to the barn! I think at this point my heart had stopped for the second time this day! I wanted to let everyone know of the highs and lows of fishing offshore! yes the rod and angler held up great and we managed to have an incredible memory for all of us aboard Barbed wire, but my true apppreciation comes from knowing that I run offshore with this team all the time, and their teamwork all the time to get a job done is absolutly top notch! If it wasn't this way I don't know how we could have pulled off such a great memory and came back to tell all about it. The HIGHS and LOWS of this day will never be forgottin, and many thanks to the crew of Barbed wire for this. I feel as if we were an A+ team on this adventure!
I hope everyone enjoys this story as much as I did fishing it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks,
Todd
Hopefully few pictures will surface in a few days!!!!
I am glad everything worked out well, we had a simliar scar in Alsaka a few years back we lost the steering cable in a storm returning from a trip. Had a long trip back steering with trim tabs.
"If at first you don't succeed, don't try skydiving"
Join Date
Jul 2005
Location
North Wildwood, NJ
Posts
122
never good when you hear boats taking on water out there....happened to my father and grandfather out there before and it's not a good situation, especially if no other boats are around....congrats on the situation turning out positive and the fish
Capt. Paul,
I guess it was from backing down, and not taking notice to the bilge pumps being on---still doing some investigating. If this would have been next week it was definitly a big money fish---So we released her for you to find next week!!
Todd
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