Like pretty much anyone with time off and a boat, headed offshore on Wednesday. With the blessed assistance of Sirius headed straight to the temperature break offshore of the Deli Ledge. With the cursed assistance of Sirius or similar tools, everyone else went there too. But, the day turned out fine indeed.
Fished from 250 feet deep to nearly 900. Two separate weed lines, neither of which was tightly held together. Lots of line clearing work so glad to have a bigger crew onboard than normal. Plenty of boats but no problems that I saw or heard about.
Water temperatures from 75 to 76. Weatherman did himself proud, water nice and smooth. Ride home with a following sea was nap inducing.
Started a bit slow. One of those weird lucky breaks when we got the first hit. I was on the tower and saw something large below the surface in the water. Called it out and just then multiple hits. It turned out to be a net in the water. We pulled 4 mahi and lost a few more off that one net in multiple passes. We heard of another boat that got more than 10 off a floating log.
On the radio and cellphone, both, people were catching. One report of a small blue marlin but sounded like mostly mahi. Barbawang had me paying attention to radio activity after a recent post. Still some conversations between the boats without Starlink - which included many on a day like yesterday. Even with Starlink helpful when close together and don’t know each other. Less talk than there used to be but still a good tool that Starlink can’t fully replace.
Pushed out further to another weed line and picked up some more. Nothing but mahi, although we were probably cut off once by a wahoo. Put 8 in the boat, all decent size with the biggest probably 30 plus. Lost a few more and cut off once. Left from the dock a bit before 7. Left to go back to the dock at 2:15 after catching the best fish of the day on a Nomad. Home and fish cleaned at 6, not quite banker’s hours but not a long day.
For the something new every time part of the report, had a hitchhiker for a while. A mature, female American Redstart trying to get to land. Poor thing was exhausted. She had a nice rest on the boat and hopefully made it home. Normally not so sure of warbler identification but had a long, good look up close.