Sails, Swords, Mako and Wahoo

Report Date: October 15, 2008

This is typically a slow time of year for the charter boats and the ailing economy is making things just a bit worse. Luckily I was able to get in 4 trips last week and also made it to the Bahamas for a few days the week prior. This week we have another 4 trips starting with Friday so all things considered, we are doing OK.

This is the time of year that the wahoo start biting in the Bahamas. Like I mentioned earlier, I was over there two weeks a go for two days. The first day we did quite a bit of high speed trolling for wahoo and ended up catching 9 wahoo. The biggest was a bit over 40 pounds and most averaged between 25 to 40 pounds. The next day was a bit slower and we only caught a couple before we pulled the plug and headed back to the US.

I have also done a bit of swordfishing. We started off great with a night swordfish trip where we caught and got the leader on a 180 pound mako shark. There seems to be quite a few makos around and they are a blast to catch. We caught this fish in about 20 minutes. We got him next to the boat without any real issues. The mako decided to stay by the boat for about 30 seconds and then decided to take off. The fish peeled off about 200 yards of line in less than 30 seconds and while doing this was jumping at least 7 to 10 feet in the air. Later that evening we also caught a 140 pound swordfish and then called it a night. It was the angler’s first mako and first sword so it was a great night.

The following trip was not as productive and was actually very slow. It was a 12hour trip from noon to midnight trip for daytime/evening swordfish. We managed one bite during the day that we ended up losing and after a few hours at night with no bites, we put our heads between our tails and went home. A few weeks ago we had a great swordfish bite during the day and although it may have slowed down, I am sure this is just temporary. This time last year, from September – December is when we caught all those huge swords during the day. I am excited about our next few trips as they are all daytime swordfish trips and I am looking forward to catching some big fish!

Fishing on the edge, there have been plenty of kings and some sailfish. The king bite was actually very good. The fish weren’t huge but they made up for it in numbers. Most kings were 5 to 15 pounds. The sails have been on the cleaner side of the edge which has varied in depth.

From what I have seen, this should be a very good year for sailfish. There are quite a few fish up north and with the cold fronts they will be making there way down towards us. We are also in the time of year to start making your plans for the winter sailfish season. Pick your dates early so you can get the dates you want. We also are open for many of the sailfish tournaments this season so give me a call if you would like to try some tournament fishing.

Tight Lines,
Capt. Dean Panos

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