One of the things that I love about offshore fishing is that you never really know what you are going to catch. Whether heading way offshore to troll for dolphin or flying kites on the edge, strange things can happen. Sometimes we are prepared and sometimes we are not. Just a few weeks ago, we had the latter happen on a last minute trip when a weather window opened up.
Joined by my father and our friend Aaron, our plan was to run out to the blue water and troll south for dolphin and blackfin tuna while making our way to a favorite deep drop spot. Once we got out of the inlet, there was scattered weed everywhere and the water was green. We ran offshore to 500 feet where we found some clean water and deployed the outriggers and spread of five baits. Within a few minutes, both outrigger baits had weed on them. Then the shotgun was dragging weed. We kept clearing lines and made our way out to 800 feet and thought we had found some clean water, but within minutes, we were back in the slop. Faced with a nearly 4 knot current, things were not looking good for deep dropping, so we decided to give trolling another 30 minutes.
Though we did our best to keep the lines clear, our efforts were futile. I looked at Aaron and said, “Let’s give it five more minutes, maybe we can luck into a blackfin.” Just then the shotgun rod started screaming. I thought for sure it was a tuna that ate the small blue and pink bullet style lure that was rigged on mono with a 6/0 J hook. As Aaron got the fish close to the boat, I saw zebra stripes and grabbed the gaff. Not my best gaff shot, but we got him in the boat and celebrated Aaron’s first wahoo. Still hard to believe we got him on mono and there wasn’t even a nick in the leader.
We got back on the troll and before we could put the shotgun back out, the port outrigger clip popped and we had a lifter size mahi jumping behind the boat. Both fish went in the box and it was time to try our luck at some deep dropping.
On our first drop, we had a nice bite, but we got rocked up and lost the entire rig, including the lead. We re-rigged and made several drops. It was difficult to hold bottom because of the current, even with ten pounds of lead, but we managed to catch seven blackbelly rosefish. We called it a day and headed for the dock with our wahoo surprise!
~ Gene Dyer