I know it is going to sound like a fish story, but I am going to tell it anyway. The weather for the next few days looked about the same, winds 10 to 15 knots from the west/southwest. No need to make the crossing today so decided to stay another day and go fishing with Freddy. ACJM got a picture of Freddy when he stopped by the night before to check out my tackle as usual. I have trolled for Grouper with him before and wanted to try it again. We rigged up several large lead headed feathers with ballyhoo and a few skirted ballyhooo for Dolphin. For the Grouper we troll in about 30 or 40 feet of water along the rocks from just South of South Bimini to Cat Cay. The rig consists of 40 to 60 pound class tackle with a 1 to 2 pound trolling lead followed by a 15 feet long, 400 pound shock leader, then the bait rigged with 150 pound wire leader and a 10/0 hook. We trolled along for 10 miles or so and had three good hits. Two were thought to be Grouper and the other thought to be a Cuda. Freddy said you could tell the difference as the Cuda's usually only got part of the bait that they bit off or the bait would be all scarred up and the Grouper somehow could peel the whole bait off the hook without getting hooked himself. Time to try for a Dolphin or Wahoo a little farther offshore. We left one of the deep rigs out for a Wahoo and put a skirted ballyhoo and Billy Bait out for Dolphin. Caught a nice Dolphin, 10 or 12 pounds and a really big Cuda which Freddy wanted to keep. Here comes the fish story. The water was a lot rougher than we had thought it was going to be so I relieved ACJM at the wheel and she stayed below with Freddy. I am sure she now knows his life story, that is if she could understand him. I saw a Frigate bird acting kind of funny ahead so speeded up to catch up to it and check it out. First pass by and nothing happened. Normally we stay with these birds for a few passes before we give up, but I was going to have to turn back into the wind to go by him again. I almost didn't, but thought I would since there was not much else going on. Second pass was much different. The Big Bull Dolphin hit our 60 pound rig with a skirted ballyhoo and took off. ACJM did not want to reel him in, so by the time she and I switched places, the fish had peeled out about 300 yards of line with the drag set down pretty good on him. It was more than I could handle standing up in the rough seas so I fought the fish from our fighting chair (compliments of COL). We battled for it seemed like hours but was more like 20 or 30 minutes. When ACJM saw him from the bridge she said "Oh my God that is the biggest Dolphin I have ever seen." I agreed. Finally after a couple late runs I got him to the back of the boat and told Freddy I did not think we had a big enough gaff. I might have been right. Freddy got a couple shots at him with the gaff and missed. The Big Bull made one more run under the boat and before I could say forward, he cut himself off on the rudder. It truly was by far the biggest Dolphin I have ever seen or have had hooked. We had our hand on the leader so it would be called an official catch but that is not much consolation. Freddy said it weighed around 50 or 60 pounds. Having the thrill of victory taken from us, we trolled our way back in and gave up for the day. It was the biggest fish we have ever fought on Feeding Frenzy except for GP's 200 pound Blue Marlin.
I could not sleep very well that night. I kept going over and over the scenario in my head. If Freddy could have stuck him with the gaff, or if I could have stood up and moved him away from the back of the boat, or if ACJM could have anticipated his lunge and moved the boat forward we might have gotten him. I had put the bait on the rod when we started trolling it as I always do, just clip the lure leader to the line. Freddy told me afterwards he always uses a shock leader even without the trolling weight so you have a heavy leader you can grab and apply more pressure on the fish when he gets close to the boat. A lot of ifs ands or buts went through my head that night, but the fact is, you can't catch them all. It will take a while to get over this one, but I will and I will get my chance again.
CTM
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