West Atlantis 9/13-9/14

[ktm_2000]

Folks,

some TMI and a story, I haven't been spending too much time on the board, or on a boat for that matter. I had high hopes of 150hrs on my motor this year and only have 15. We bought another house and we had one thought of the reno and it turned into a full gut reno and has been taking too much time. It doesn't help that work has been stupid busy so I have been jammed up pretty bad for time doing anything fun.

Any which way the stars aligned and a buddy called up wednesday wanting to do a canyon run on his rig friday into saturday. I had already put in 35hrs in work by that time and advised the boss I was going one way or the other...

We left the dock friday morning at 10 am and headed south, was kind of nice to get a full nights sleep thursday and a good breakfast. The normal 5am departure times are a killer.... On the way south we passed the boats installing the windmills south of the vineyard, amazing the size of the crane vessel looking off in to the distance you see a big boat and a little boat, get closer, the little boat is 75' and the crane boat is 500+. no life there though....

a bit further south just north of the dump was quite a bit of bait balling up on the surface and some whale action. We didn't see any BFT working them and probably wouldn't have stopped if we did as the capt had canyons on his mind. We made our way south and stopped just south of the bottom lane and put out a high speed wahoo spread on a pair of bent but 80s and went another 20 miles south swerving as close to as many high flyers as we could. No joy on the wahoo and the radio had other boats getting yellowfin so we switched over to a traditional spread 5 miles north of the tip. We found weed lines and worked them and had 2 knock downs one of which ran out 300yds in less time that it took me to clear the inside rods of the spread. The fish turned and I was able to turn the boat and keep him aft but he than ran straight at the boat and came off. We got the ballyhoo back and the leader was chaffed just above the hook for 12", there's only one type of fish that does that......

We continued working south and stayed on the eastern edge of the canyon and then crossed back and forth as it got darker, We switched out the spread for larger darker lures and brought the 80s back in hoping for bigeye. No joy there either... crossing the canyon we found a lone high flyer with no ball so we trolled by and picked up a couple nice mahi and on the 3rd pass had another run off, this time maybe 100yds and before we could get on it, it was gone. bringing the bar in the stinger was heavily chaffed.

We trolled into the dark finally stopping near the eastern wall with the thoughts that the win/current would push us west over the night. We brought in the spread and 2 more lures had heavy chaffing. Over night we were in the deep water and set out 3 sword baits and waited. We had one run off around 10pm on the 50' bait but when I pushed the drag up near strike it stopped. Someone was there but hadn't fully eaten it.

Nothing the rest of the night, we did 2 hr watches switching back and forth. The moon went down around 2am and the star show was amazing.

We got back on the troll for 5am in the dark and worked our way south and east looking for the bigeye bite. 6:05 a hoo went off on a 50 and started dumping the spool, I got a belt and harness on and as I grabbed the rod, the line wasn't going down, I looked up to see a marlin tail walking 300 yds out. my jaw dropped ..... but that was shortlived as the cappy cleared the marlin turned around and started running at the boat. I cranked that reel as hard as I could till my arm cramped and thankfully the marlin changed course and I was able to recover for 45 seconds till he ran at the boat again and I cranked as hard as I could . At this point the spread was cleared and the cappy was maneuvering the boat to help me keep tension on the line. This fish was different, he came at the boat, only pausing 20yds out for a minute or 2 then he came to the transom and we naïvely tried to leader him thinking white marlin. He was green as green can be, lit up like a bright neon blue/neon purple sign with dark bars, wait no spots? and cappy grabbed the leader as I put the rod in a holder and he transferred the leader to me and grabbed the bill. MISTAKE, that fish was too green and he thrashed, smashing the cappy off the side of the boat he is not a small guy nor is he weak but he got tossed like a rag doll. In the process the hook fell out and he released the fish, not like he had a choice in doing so...... Id on the fish, black/purple/dark blue bars vertical, about the length of the cockpit, mean as all hell = blue marlin, my first.

After the adrenaline calmed down we got the spread out, replacing lures that had been chaffed and got back on the troll. We worked that area but no one was doing much so we decided to work north to the area where others had got yellowfin the day before. We got into the heavy weed lines and eventually cut through it and had to clean the spread. When the last hoo was getting slid into its spot in the clean water inside the bars it went off with a fury, cappy saw the hole in the water but didn't see the fish and I scrambled to clear the spread. this fish cleared the mono quickly and got into the backing and we finally turned it. It took a bit to get him near the boat and 40' down doing the spiral. We could easily see the sickle fins and I put the boat into a spin corkscrewing it so as the line was between 45-90 off the side of the boat. We got to leader several times and the fish would just run off 100yds in an instant. The 3rd time I leadered it and we got a gaff in it. Beatiful yellowfin, 49" to the fork.

We worked our way north to the lanes and kept checking pots, small mahi would come out but nothing else. On one of the weed clearings we did find another chaffed lure so something else had visited but didn't want to play.

Eventually we pulled the spread and did some pot hopping throwing small jigs and picked up a few mahi. By 11am and both of us running on fumes and realizing we had 3+ steam home we picked up and ran home.


That was an amazing trip and I am SOOOO GLAD I got a chance to go.

Cappy was checking his lures, 7 lures had chaffe and needed re-rigging. The billed ones were out on this trip.

yellowfin on the deck - https://photos.app.goo.gl/pmSrFQyERkf1jnzZ7

marlin near the boat - https://photos.app.goo.gl/H7G7Afs3kcqo4Zeo7

[Sweetnut]

Sweet!!! Excellent recap, glad you got out there.

[mike ohlstein]

Awesome

[Carl]

A bad day fishing beats a good day at work.

Two great days fishing beats just about everything.


Thanks for sharing

[Tony Meola]

NIce write up. Nothing like a Big Blue coming up behind the boat.

[ktm_2000]

Tony, I'm not gonna tell you it was a big blue..... more like a baby one We would have been outclassed on a medium sized one

Sunset in the canyons
https://photos.app.goo.gl/VphLCGA1Sw4Y4e4H9

[Amberjack]

Awesome trip, way more adventurous than anything I’ve done. What boat?

Thanks for posting this.

[ktm_2000]

I was on my buddy's 33 grady.

Last Night's dinner, my wife made some hollandaise sauce to top it off.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/jXraoyZgWQGnzQm87

[Tony Meola]

Big Blue or Small Blue having any Billfish come up and get all lit up is something else.

Many moons ago we had a big girl come up and take teaser. I did not realize how big it was until I yanked the teaser out of its mouth, and it came up mad as hell. Head out of the water, she was slashing her bill all over the place before she jumped on a rigged squid. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately she spit the hook.

She hit the smallest reel we had out there, probably would have dumped it in no time.

[PeterPalmieri]

Amazing trip