By Terry Lacoss:
By Terry Lacoss:“The sun was just about to set when I noticed a large school of bait that was being pushed up to the surface by game fish deep below,” said legendary Florida blue water angler Don Combs. “The nervous school of baitfish showered the surface of the calm ocean.”
Combs and his fishing party, aboard the St. Augustine-based sportfishing boat Shark Bait, were fishing for sailfish in 300 feet of water. The sailfish bite had been excellent off of Flagler Beach, Fla., which led them to believe sails were likely working that pod of baitfish.
“We trolled right through that nervous school of bait, resulting in a big fish striking a black and blue Flame lure,” remembered Combs. “We fought that big wahoo for almost a half hour before we were able to bring the hooked fish up close to the transom of my sportfishing boat… I know that wahoo had to have weighed well over 150 pounds!”
Combs knows what a big wahoo looks like. He holds the Northeast Florida Marlin Association’s record for a wahoo that weighed 125 pounds. He and his team had just set out a spread of high-speed lures when that big ’hoo struck.
“Typically the really big wahoo will take a large bait or lure,” Combs said. “In this case we had just begun to troll with a spread of large C&H lures. Minutes later that monster ’hoo struck, and we had it on the boat in less than 15 minutes. I immediately announced on the VHF marine radio that the tournament was over and we had just landed the winning wahoo!”
The Shark Bait team won the Northeast Florida Marlin Association’s annual wahoo tournament, and they also set a club record that stands to this day. Wahoo fishing is so good off northeast Florida that boats often hook up with 10 or more per trip to the ledge, where depths drop sharply from 180 to 1,000 feet of water. Combs and fishing party once hooked 21 wahoo in a single day fishing off St. Augustine.
“One thing that I have learned, though, is that wahoos prefer to strike a lure that is trolled under the surface and is also trolled in a dead-straight line. Some of my favorite lure combination colors for wahoo include blue-white and red-black. Ironically, one of the very first lures I designed is still one of my favorite blue water lures today, the American Express. We have caught some really large wahoo with this popular lure, and during one blue water fishing trip to the Big Ledge, we boated a 67-, 57- and 45-pound bull dolphin with the blue-white American Express.”
Combs helped pioneer speed trolling for wahoo. He produced some of the world’s best blue water lures while heading up C&H lures, and his high-speed lures include C & H Mr. Big, Wahoo Whacker XL, and the American Express. But Comb’s real windfall was putting together Salt Life outdoor apparel.
He and his wife Cynthia captured the first “Super Slam” ever recorded in northeast Florida and in one year caught and released 52 billfish off north Florida.