By Scott Saunders:
On Sunday, September 2nd, my crew consisting of Tuckker Brasher from West Marine’s Jupiter store, Laura Modena and I aboard my 21’ ProSports BayKat Can’t Say No powered by a Suzuki F200 headed out the St. Lucie Inlet. We had to go farther offshore to find bluewater than normal due to recent heavy rain runoff from the St. Lucie River. We hit our usual spots for getting some live bait but only found blue runners and hornbellies. Our target that Sunday was to find a nice wahoo (or two). On the way out, Tuckker and I talked about blue marlin. I wanted to finish the St. Lucie Inlet Grand Slam (swordfish, sailfish, white marlin and blue marlin). All that was left was to find that blue marlin someday…long odds for sure, but today it was about finding wahoo.
We defrosted some ballyhoo and put out a dolphin spread. I decided to also troll a blue/white Islander on #8 wire and a large ballyhoo as we trolled over Push Button Hill, south of the inlet. We were using a Penn International II 50W with 50 pound blue Momoi Diamond mono and dropped a downrigger to about 75 feet (on the rigger) and set the bait about 100 feet back from the downrigger ball. It was our hope to find that wahoo.
On the first pass westbound coming up on 320 feet, we heard line snap off the downrigger and the reel started to scream. YES…wahoo! The line kept peeling off the reel way longer than a wahoo run. The idea of getting spooled crossed our minds several times. A few moments later, we saw (what we thought to be) a huge sailfish tail walk for what looked like 100 feet 300 yards back from the boat… and it was still taking line like crazy. I handed Tuckker a belt and he jumped on the reel and got to work.
We quickly cleared all of the other lines and got down to business. Well the fish wanted nothing to do with us and kept taking line. Finally, it slowed down and Tuckker got a few feet of line back. Then…the line went totally slack. I told him, “keep reeling Tuckker, keep reeling” and gunned the throttles forward. We ran about 20 knots for 30 to 40 seconds thinking perhaps the fish was off but then the line came tight again. The fish had made a high speed run right at us!
We decided after 30 minutes into the fight along with the amount of pressure we were putting in the fish that it HAD to be a blue…but not one said this out loud. There was no way a sailfish could withstand the pressure Tuckker was putting on it with the 50W.
The fish sounded and stayed deep for the rest of the fight. We managed to get him boatside several times and started to leader it then he would make a hard right turn directly under the boat and dive deep again. We thought that we might be putting too much pressure on the line so Tuckker was careful not to touch the spool at all. I had not checked the drag before we went out but the last time they had been set up for high speed wahoo trolling. Finally, we saw the dorsal fin and confirmed that it was indeed a BLUE! Now, we were speechless.
After an hour long fight and on the fourth attempt, Tuckker leadered and billed the fish. I got my lure back, took a few photos and revived the massive fish. Our best estimate of the length was 11 to 12 feet (from my forward seating to transom). Based on the length we are estimating 350 pounds. But, what do I know, this is the largest fish I have ever caught or…seen! Man was I stoked and Tuckker was really sore!
When I got back to the dock, out of curiosity I checked the drag on the 50W. I could not believe that it was peaking at 32 pounds. Wow, did we get lucky. Any less drag and I don’t think that we could have stopped this amazing fish.
I now have my St. Lucie Inlet Grand Slam! You just never know….
The St. Lucie Inlet is located in Stuart, Florida between the Ft. Pierce Inlet and Jupiter Inlet. It serves as the eastern end of the Cross Florida Canal/Okeechobee Waterway and is a popular departure point for the Northern Bahamas.