We took Thursday, August 13th, off from fishing as our Bahamas cruising buddies, John & Lori, sailed down from Miami and anchored up near Lorelei. They had just spent 10 days or so in Bimini. We enjoyed having some of our previous days catch cooked at Lorelei and listened to Steve Webb sing his Captain Morgan song for us. Decided to all go fishing the next day. Friday morning CJM picked up the Pomeroys while I got the boat ready. We headed out by 10AM or so and decided to start trolling in 300 feet of water or so as it was pretty rough, 3-5 foot seas and 10-15 knot winds. Found a weed line about 500 feet deep and trolled along it. It was a little scattered and very hard to follow into the sun so CJM soon had me take the wheel. Lots of birds working and sure enough we found some Mahi. One small one first that we had to measure. It was about 22 inches to the fork of the tail and they have to be 20 inches. We were hoping for at least a couple more so we would have enough for dinner. Still on the same weed line but had found a concentration of weeds and a little more debris. This time we hooked 3 fish at once and it was ON! Bigger fish too. John & Lori each had a fish, there was one more hooked but in the rod holder and I cleared the 4th line while CJM kept us out of tangles and trouble. We got John's in first and then he picked up the 3rd line and started working on it. We got all three in. Good job by all. We trolled around the same debris a couple more times and caught one other nice Mahi and had another bite or two that we didn't get. We caught most of the fish on rigged ballyhoo and a couple on Billy baits. We decided to start trolling in and again saw some birds working, probably on Tuna and sure enough, we hooked a really nice Blackfin Tuna. Lori handled this one and decided after landing it that she might need to start working out with weights if she was going to be doing much of that. All in all another great day of fishing in the Keys!
By the way, the "Curse of the Jayhawk" seems to be real. In May we did not catch a Mahi while Scott Stinson was on the boat but had a great catch the very next day out after he left. And, the same when Kate was here..........only one little Mahi until the next day out after she left. Both of them being KU grads is the only explanation I can think of! Until next time....
CTM
blasted beakers.
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