Day and Night

Report Date: August 1, 2007

July ended pretty well for us. We had a trip to Bimini for three days as well as three nights of swordfish and a few day trips here. That kept me fairly busy and the fishing was decent. Starting off with Bimini, we went over mainly to bottom fish. We primarily targeted yellowtail snappers. One day we were covered up by huge “flags” and it was certainly a lot of fun. Some yellowtails were in excess of 4 pounds and pulled drag on 20 pound outfits. With the Bahamas though, there is always variety and we caught mackerel, jacks, sharks, cobia, etc. We never did find any decent grouper while we were there though. I also loaded up the baitwells one morning with pilchards, and we set out to hunt for yellowfin tunas. We headed up north and after catching and releasing some yellowtails(new limits in place), we set out to find the birds and the tunas. We found the tuna birds and live chummed in the area, but we never got the tunas up. It was midday and the birds were quite high, indicating that the tuna schools were deep in the water as would be expected during the middle of the day. If we would have targeted and found the tunas at first light, the outcome would have probably been totally different. Either way, we had a blast in Bimini, catching a bunch of fish and fishing with good clients that were a lot of fun to be with.

Our trips here have consisted of nighttime swordfish trips as well as a few day trips. During the day it has been a few kingfish, bonitos, and an occasional sailfish. The action isn’t bad as long as the bonitos keep you occupied while you wait for the kingfish and sailfish bites. We have been using herring and pilchards as our live baits. Our nighttime swordfish has been quite good. We have managed to catch at least one swordfish on every one of our trips and our best night we caught three. The talk on the radio is that it has been a slow summer so far, so I am ecstatic that we have been on the lucky side. The swordfishing will get better for the whole fleet in the very near future. August should be a good month and once the water temperature drops a degree or two, like it should in September, the swordfishing will get very good. There have been a few fish caught in the 200 - 250 pound range this past week. Our largest was just under 200 pounds (70 inch LJFL). While we were fighting that fish and had it next to th boat, a bigger sword appeared just under the one that was hooked. My client was actually fishing one rod with 8 pound test to see if we could possibly get a new IGFA record on 8. We secured the first fish and pitched the 8 pound rod at the second fish. The second swordfish actually turned on the bait of the 8 pound rod, but never ate it. I don’t know if this was a blessing in disguise as the second fish was over 250 pounds and if we would have hooked her on 8 pound line, we may still be out there fighting her. It was a blast though seeing both fish of that size swimming right next to each other.

August looks like it is going to be a banner month as I am booked quite a bit especially in the latter part. I do have days open as well as some nights, so depending on what you want to target, give me a call and let’s set it up!

Tight Lines,
Capt. Dean Panos

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