Passage Fishing Report

Very Successful Fishing!

We caught fish the majority of the days during the 7 ½ day journey. Once the reel took off and we noticed a fish was on the line, one person ran to the fishing rod to reel it in, one person ran to the helm to slow the boat down, and one person ran to the liquor stash to grab some vodka to pour into the gills of the fish which kills it a bit quicker. After the catching of a fish, a celebratory beer, champagne or other cocktail was in order.

The first fish caught was a blackfin tuna which Richard reeled in and immediately filleted up for some delicious sashimi.

The next fish on the line was the biggest Mahi we had ever seen! It took Gene an hour to reel it in. 

Unfortunately, we were unsuccessful with the gaffing of this huge Mahi, and he ended up getting away at the very last moment. We all still claimed that it was the biggest Mahi ever seen – 50 lbs at least!

The following day, we successfully caught another Mahi, about a quarter the size of the first one, but still pretty big and made for an excellent dinner and blackened Mahi sandwiches for lunch the next day.

One afternoon, we had a huge fish on the line and when we reeled it in close enough to get a good look. All three of us were astonished – it looked like a huge sail fish! We decided to let it go since it is not great for eating and was really hard to gaff and get onto the boat. After referring to our fish guidebook, we identified it as a spear fish which is in the same family as sword fish.

Richard's first attempt to gaff the monster before we realized it was endangered!

Gene's obvious excitement from the big catch! He had just sworn not to pull the lure in until it caught something since that particular lure was batting .000 to date...

Just a few hours after the spear fish, we successfully hooked a big Wahoo which we filleted and had for dinner that evening.

Other fish that were caught and released were 1 barracuda, 1 pirate fish (at least that's what we think it was), and a number of flying fish that literally flew onto the deck of the boat each day.

On Thanksgiving day, we caught 4 Mahi. The last one caught was ~ 30 lbs. This is obviously the turkey of the sea. Last year we caught 2 Mahi on Thanksgiving day, so it's now a tradition!

The last fish we caught, on the last day of our journey, was a blackfin tuna to round out the trip. Richard again proceeded to dazzle us with his expert tuna filleting skills, and we had some tuna sashimi for our last lunch together as a group.

Final fish count: 9 Mahi's, 2 Blackfin Tuna, 1 Shortbilled Spearfish, 1 Wahoo, 1 Baracuda, 1 Pirate Fish (Small fish with black stripe over it's eye... appropriately named... Pirate Fish)