Cleared the MI jetties by 5am Wednesday morning. This is the second late start for us but they seem to be paying off… Lines in by 7:30 and immediately pick up a peanut. Decided to head towards the stream and pushed offshore to find some really nice weed lines.
Had a rod bounce, buddy picked it up and fed, came tight on a blue. Did a good job clearing lines and getting on top of the fish. Released in 25min. About a 200lb fish. That makes 4 consecutive trips for us with billfish this year. 3 sails and 2 blues.
Continued working down some awesome weedlines and blue water rips but no one was home. Finally found a big raft of weeds and managed to catch fish on the troll, topwater, cut bait, and vertical jigging all within about a half hour. We also tagged three fish on the smaller end for Mr. Hammond.
Weed needed a break from the slingers and decided to move back into the ledge. In about 500ft our outrigger line pops and there is a white jumping all over god’s creation behind the boat. We had the fish on for about 5 minutes before it spit the hook and I’m pretty sure that fish spent 4 of those minutes out of the water. Very cool show.
We raised sails three different times on the ledge but couldn’t get a hook in any of them. I also watched a wahoo come screaming across on a flatline and cut us off.
All in all it was a gorgeous day with some great old friends and we made some new friends that I’m sure will be back on the boat soon.
HEADS UP:
As a kid I was able to justify the passing of family pets with the belief that there was a Heaven for these beloved animals to go after their deaths. I don’t know if this is true or not but I can tell you one thing for certain. If such an afterlife exists for animals, there is a special place in HELL for the flocks of birds that are out there right now. Those birds accounted for no less than 3 dozen destroyed ballyhoo throughout the day. Anyone headed offshore would be best advised to back a 20 gauge with some high brass #9s.
great report It don’t get much better does it,what is the deal with the birds out there??
Silky, the birds that you normally see meandering around out there in ones and twos have now ganged up and are attacking trolling spreads like flying monkeys from the wizard of Oz. I am talking 5 birds on one ballyhoo. I had to remove all of the pink lures from my spread bc the birds would easily pick them out and destroy them. If you are heading out anytime soon, pack an extra 3-4 packs of ballyhoo.
Sorry, I should have included all of that. The color that produced the most quantity yesterday was green/yellow anything. The color that produced the best quality fish would be a blue/white flash series ilander on the Way Back. That lure put a few really nice bulls in the boat.
The blue marlin ate a black/blue flash series ilander on the short rigger rigged with a med ballyhoo and about 12ft of 80lb fluorocarbon.
My blue/white seawitches and lil stubbys did not get touched.
We never found any significant temperature. Stayed in 78 degree water most of the day. There was a lot of back flow from the stream deep off the hole and the weed mats were there.
Lemme know if I can help with anything else.
Do not tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don’t tell them where they know the fish.