WE PICKED THE POCKET!!!!

O.K...so Thursday we headed out for Bimini. We decided to fish the northern end of the "Pocket" in the Tongue of the Ocean ONE more time to see if we could break the curse of having NEVER caught anything except barracuda there....Well, folks, we BROKE THE CURSE!!!! About 3 miles before time to reel up and head west to Bimini it happened.....the TLD 50 in the shotgun position took off like a shotgun! I was driving, CTM was up above bending my ear about something, Kate was making sandwiches inside, and "Little CTM" was sitting on the back of the boat staring off into the wild blue yonder. In other words it caught us off guard and suddenly we had a Chinese fire drill going! CTM grabbed the rod and started hollering for me to back down on the fish because the spool was almost empty and to get the other FOUR lines reeled up! Well, I started backing down on the fish but unfortunately backed over the wire line and wrapped it up in the prop before we were able to get them all reeled up. After 45 minutes of cheerleading by Kate, coaching by CTM, and skillful driving on my part :)

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and wrestling the monster......

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Caldwell landed our THIRD Blue Marlin on FF III...a 250 + pounder!!!

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"Game ON, MDW & PJW!"

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And now for the THIRD time....

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Now that was all said and done there remained the issue of the wire line wrapped around the prop :( Caldwell graciously volunteered to dive down and get it out since he got to land the fish :) However, floating in 1000 feet of water there remained the issue of the thoughts of the Whitetip Shark that lurked around our marlin back at Cat Island! We had kept a close vigil while we were landing our marlin this time. Never did see one but were still concerned one might be cruising around. At one point, Kate and I started screaming that we saw something in the water and he had to scurry back on board! It was VERY nerve wracking for Mom and Kate (and Caldwell) and we were very relieved to finally have the wire line out of the prop and him back on board with all legs and arms intact!!!!

"Excessive celebration" AGAIN! We drank a gallon of Looper's Love Potion, took a dip in the pool, and had dinner at Bimini Big Game and more "foo foo" drinks! Yes, for those of you who know and love Big Game, IT IS OPEN AGAIN!!!!

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Heading out fishing today on our own and Freddie will join us on Sunday :) Catch you on the flip flop....

CJM