Verde Grande…
Left the dock around 4:30 or so with a crew that has never fished together including the notorious Black Bart and a few other CF.com lurkers. Headed out and find a nice little patch of water. Got lines in around 8am and from that point, it was non-stop gaffer dolphin action. We completely filled up my fish box and my insulated fish bag. But the fish were so nice that was only 21 keepers! I don’t think we could have fit a ballyhoo in there they were jammed in so tight. We weighed our 3 largest fish at 41#, 40#, 36#. We had several more fish in the upper 20’s that were pushing 30#. Hot color of the day was anything with a ballyhoo attached to it. I think only 3 of our fish were slingers.
After 3 hours in, around 11 am, we had a heart to heart about what to do for the rest of the day. Do we feel the need to prove our manhood to CF.com and catch 60 dolphin just to say we did it and shock and awe new CF.com readers, or do we try to go for some larger beast? It was an easy decision as nobody wanted to reel in any more dolphin.
We put out a spread of lures and 30 minutes in we catch another dolphin, and then a while later, get another 25# dolphin. An hour after that, we get a big splash on the long rigger. Then up pops the tail and dorsal fin of a small blue marlin. He followed our lure for a minute or so, but could not get him to inhale it. Excitement none-the-less.
After a couple more hours of pulling lures, we pick them up and head into the ledge and switch back over to meat to see if we can get mr wahoo. But, on the way back in, we spotted TWO tailing sailfish that were swimming about 50 yards apart. We circled them for 15-20 minutes or so, pleading to them for a bite, but could not get them interested. I know we drug the bait over their head a few times. They were just relaxing though.
Once we got back into the ledge, the boats there looked like a weekend at Morris Island. We gave it a shot for an hour, caught a blackfin, couple more dolphin and a reef donkey, but
