I had a young man on the boat Southbound today, and he Wanted a big Fish!
The trip was his “Christmas” present from his mom. He wanted to catch a big fish and my 1st mate and I wanted to make sure he caught one. We had 2 trips scheduled and on the first trip, it was a little “Sporty” and unfortunately, we had to deal with a bit of seasickness. I have always said that it doesn’t matter what you are catching, if you have your head in a bucket, you are not having fun. When all is said and done, Fun is what we are really “selling”.
I always want to turn a “negative” into a positive.
so we left the reef and headed to protected waters. Once there, all the stomach troubles settled, but the fishing wasn’t good. I still had time left on the trip so I decided to run out to the Gulf of Mexico. The wind was out of the South and the Gulf was on the North side of the island so the water would be calm.
The Gulf can be good, but we have had a lot of Cold fronts this year and the water gets stirred up. When it is too dirty, fishing is tough. I thought it was going to be clean enough to troll, but we never had a bite. The weather was beautiful. calm and sunny, But we can get calm and sunny at the beach.
On Day #2
The weather and the seas on the South side of Key West. I wanted to catch the young man a “big’ fish today and so did my 1st mate. We started fishing on the Reef. I was hoping to catch some Cero Mackerel or possibly a big Barracuda. The Cero Mackerels did not cooperate, but we got some nice big Barracudas and released a Mutton Snapper that was just short of legal, but still fun to catch.
After spending a few hours on the Reef
We headed offshore looking for a bluewater fish. From the reports I had gotten on the radio, there had been a few fish caught offshore that morning. I heard of a couple of Black Fin Tuna and one Wahoo caught, but there were not a lot of boats fishing offshore that morning, so it was worth trying. A Tuna, A Wahoo or a Sailfish would all qualify as a “Big” fish, I just needed one.
I was trolling to the east in about 180 ft of water.
A pod of Porpoise swam alongside the boat for a bit, but I didn’t get a video. Normally, a pod of Porpoise is not good for fishing. They are an Apex predator and as far as the other fish are concerned, they are no different than a shark. The big, fast, have sharp teeth, and will eat a smaller fish with ease.
Porpoises are always nice to see.
I had just pointed out the porpoise to my customers when the deep troll line went off and started screaming line. We got our young angler in the fighting chair and my 1st mate cleared the other lines. I slowed the boat to help the angler and after a few minutes, we boated a 31 Lb. Wahoo. We had our big fish finally!!
We trolled the rest of the day and caught some Bonitos and some Big Barracudas on one of the Wrecks.
It was not red-hot fishing, but we caught the best Blue Water fish of the day. We headed in with a happy young angler! when he was on the boat the 1st day, he said he really wanted to catch a mahi. it was his favorite fish. Back at the dock, his NEW favorite fish was a Wahoo!!
He wanted big fish and we got him one
The Wahoo was 54 inches long………….the angler was 56 inches long
Mission Accomplished!