| YT, Oz, Mako, Tunakilla, Shane, Charlie, Jay, Mike and I
headed offshore last weekend on NYATI to various rigs and structure way offshore.
Seas were favorable--2 to 3 feet at 6 seconds. We began trolling a rig Saturday
morning, quickly picking up 4 wahoo, including these two by Jay and Sam.
Jay's wahoo was a quality 45 pound class fish.
We continued trolling, fighting sargassum most of the way. There
is a LOT of weed way offshore now. In the early afternoon, Charlie caught
the first of our five big dolphin.
Shortly thereafter, we hooked up on a 200 pound class marlin,
which tailwalked briefly before throwing the hook. We will have to make up
those 5 points.
About 2:30, I hooked up on a decent sailfish. As the fish came to
the boat, Gabe billed it literally just as the hook came out of its mouth.
Gabe quickly wrestled it into the boat for photos before release. Great save
Gabe!
Unable to find a quality rip or weedline, we continued to troll
various rigs. Shortly before dark, we picked up a small yellowfin. Shane
then caught another nice bull dolphin.
That night we bobbed around and briefly fished the deep. An
8'+ silky swam to the boat, so I put out a shark rig and caught and released
him. The fish had some sort of old netting between its dorsal and pectoral
fins which grew into its skin, which can be seen from the picture.
That morning we began trolling in the thick weed without any
success. After 15 miles or so, the weed cleared and we miraculously came
upon a 3 or 4 acre patch of weed. We began trolling it, getting constant
double and triple wahoo hookups.
After we cleared out the wahoo, Sam, Jay and Gabe caught three more big bull
Dorado.
We then snorkled the sargassum, seeing some pretty cool fish.
We saw lots of bait of every variety, including some HUGE rainbow runners,
but no wahoo.
It was almost pitch black under the thick sargassum.
This little silky shark came to investigate us. The picture
did not show it, but the shark was missing an entire pectoral fin.
The final tally included 19 wahoo, 5 big bull dolphin, 1 yellowfin,
1 sail, and 1 silky. Thanks Mike for your professional quality photos. Thanks
YT and crew for another great trip aboard the NYATI.
- Scott 'Old Salt' Nelson |
