Big Mahi!

Report Date: June 13, 2013

In the past two weeks we have had a variety of different type of trips. We did a trip to Bimini, a daytime swordfish trip, and a few trips on the edge. Starting with the trip to Bimini, after a week of very windy weather, we got lucky and the wind laid down just in time for our trip. We did fairly well in Bimini. The deep dropping was good with very large yellow eye snappers. We hit one spot where we would hook 4 or 5 yellow eyes at one time but on the way up the same shark would always eat two of the snappers and leaving us 2 or 3. At least he wasn’t greedy and tried to eat them all. We also did some yellowtail fishing and that was very good for the jumbo yellowtails in the Gingerbreads. This time though, the shark weren’t as merciful. If anyone thinks there is a shark shortage, they haven’t been to the Bahamas. We would anchor up and start chumming and within 10 or so minutes we would catch some true flag yellowtails. After about 30 minutes the sharks would show up and would eat every single yellowtail that we hooked. So we would move a few miles down the reef line and start over again. Again the same pattern, we would catch a couple of dozen and then the sharks would wipe us out again. As long as we kept moving we were doing fine. After yellowtail fishing, we went into NW channel and started looking for the birds and the yellowfin tunas. Pretty quickly we found a flock of birds and set up on them twice and started the chunking process. After 20 minutes of chunking the birds were getting closer and we could see the tunas jumping. As luck would have it though, a squall line rolled in and the rain started pelting down. The birds took off and the tunas went down as well. A bit disheartened after a solid attempt and the fact that it was getting a bit late we decided to look for one more flock of birds and then go back to Bimini. We located one more flock and started chunking again. After 10 or so minutes we saw about 6 or 7 huge mahis eating our chunks. We hooked the first one, which was a solid 30 pounds. As we were fighting that one the school stuck around but now a huge bull pulled up into the middle of the remaining fish. It was uncanny how big this bull dolphin was. It clearly dwarfed the 20 and 30 pound cows that were with him. As luck would have it, the big dolphin ate a sardine pitched out on a spinning rod. I had not concerns that we hooked the fish on 20-pound tackle, but what had me concerned is that we hooked the fish with a small 1/0 yellowtail hook. While we had that fish hooked, we ended up catching 5 or so of the 20 and 30 pounders that were with the bull. After 40 minutes the big bull was finally getting tired and we ended up getting him on board. The fish was clearly over 50 pounds and my best guess would put him somewhere around 55 pounds. We had a great ride back and a trophy fish to go with it.

The fishing on the edge also remains very good with big 20 to 40 pound kingfish leading the way. The blackfin tunas are still here and we have been catching them as well. There have also been some sailfish around to keep things exciting. Last week we had a week of torrential rain from the last tropical system that brushed by us and as a result the water has gotten very dirty. Even with the dirty water, the fishing is still very good. Once the water cleans up, the fishing is probably going to get a whole lot better as well.

I am pretty much booked the rest of the month, but beginning in July, I have some openings. We have a few more trips scheduled for the Bahamas, as well as some mahi trips offshore and some daytime swordfish trips. Summer is here so book your trips now and lets go catch some fish!

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