We started the day
with the intention of getting some live bait and fishing for Sailfish and whatever else wanted to bite. Hopefully some Black Fin Tuna, Kingfish or dolphin. It was a good plan, except the bait was non-existent. I have a spot that is usually foolproof this time of year. Keyword – usually! we had the right conditions. The tide was just switching and the chum should have brought the ballyhoo to us. Unfortunately, they were nowhere to be seen. I really wanted to put my people on a sailfish and I still think live bait is the best way to go. After sitting for over an hour and a half, I decided we could not spend any more time looking for bait. It would not be fair to my customers.
Sometimes in this business,
you have to be flexible and then sometimes not. Today was one of those days when you had to make changes on the go. Live bait wasn’t going to work. I can’t spend half the trip looking for bait. We heard on the radio that there were some Dolphin being caught, So we decided to go offshore trolling weedlines looking for some. I’m glad we did.
There was a weed line in about 500ft of water.
Nice sized patches of Sargasso weed. It looked great as soon as we got close to it. Most of the boats I heard on the radio had gone west because it was pretty windy and the seas were at least 4-5 ft. The Southbound can take a sea pretty well. I’ve been in waves up to 21-14 ft, and NO it was not fun. But we can handle it. 4-5 wasn’t any problem.
When you are trolling weedlines offshore, you have to make a decision of whether to go east or west on it. If it’s rough, it’s more comfortable to troll west or down sea. Unfortunately, that means you will have to run into the waves to get home. If you go east, it’s kind of bouncy, but when it’s time to go home, you will have a nice ride home with the sea on your stern. So we went East. Into the waves, but away from the weed line that the other boats had already fished. Turned out to be a good plan.
We were only fishing for a few minutes
when we hooked a small dolphin on the outrigger and a big fish on the deep troll. The fish on the deep troll turned out to be a 33lb Wahoo and my angler did a great job especially in those seas.
We trolled east along the weed line
picking at some fish. It wasn’t red hot, but we got some keeper and threw some back. Finally, toward the end of the day, I saw a large dolphin swimming down the weed line. We turned and got in front of him and we hooked up pretty quick. It turned out to be a 25lb Bull dolphin. That’s a nice one any day of the week.