By Gary Turner
We were trolling along under blue skies when the back right rod started bleeding line. It was a good fish, whatever it was. But just like that, the line snapped and the fish was gone. We were all pumped after the first bite of the day.
Off West Palm Beach, Stacy Flemming, Jimmy Dean and I had met the bait man early to get some goggle eyes. We were in search of big fish. Mahi, tuna, sailfish and cobia were all on the list.
As we pulled baits, boats began to arrive on the water. There was a Trump boat parade that morning, a Trumptilla, and nearly all of them came out to fish. It got a little crazy, so we decided to move farther out. That was our lucky move.
As soon as we got baits back in the water, a rod started shedding line, not at a furious pace, just leisurely. “He doesn’t even know he’s hooked yet,” said Dean. About that time, line started screaming out of the reel. The fish made a long first run, and as I started to reel down on it, it leapt. It was a nice sailfish!
After what seemed like an hour, the fish started to slow. We maneuvered close, and Dean grabbed its bill and unhooked the 4/0 circle hook. He revived the fish and let it swim away.
Dean has a saying, “On the boat, all is calm until it’s chaos.”
Oh, how true that is! We were enjoying the sunshine and 100-foot water clarity when we hooked the next fish. Then, all of sudden, we had two. Fleming and Dean grabbed the rods. I scrambled to clear the lines. Dean’s fish came unbuttoned, but Fleming had a leaper on.
We soon saw why that sailfish was doing its best to stay in the air. A large bull shark had spotted it. The shark was all over our fish!
Regulations say you should leave sailfish in the water, but we had to save this one. As I backed the boat in, Fleming and Dean yanked it in the boat just as the shark made another run at it. Whew, that was exciting! With the shark out of sight, we stood watch as Dean revived and released his fish. After several more, we called it a day.
The next day, we didn’t see much activity until afternoon. A large shark passed with cobia in tow, but none took our baits. Then we saw diving birds and fish smashing baitfish on the surface. About a minute later, the back-left rod bent hard. Fleming got a hold of it, and that fish was moving. When we finally saw color, it was a tuna.
Fleming reeled as fast as he could, while we watched another big bull shark homing in on the tuna’s trajectory. The shark hit the tuna right above the tail but couldn’t hang on! Injured, the tuna came quickly to the gaff. We had one more hook-up from that school of tuna before we decided to drop baits on a wreck to top off the cooler. It was a great couple of days off South Florida.
If you’ve got an extra seat on your boat, contact Gary Turner at gary@purgeright.com.