Week Number 4

We completed week number four of our cruise on Thursday. We are up to 843 NM. We are about 200 miles from home so our trip mileage will exceed the 1019 miles we cruised in the Abacos in 2009. The wind has not been our friend the entire trip, but has cooperated much more than last time here. We got offshore 3 times this week with one great day including a Blue Marlin catch and a Hoo, both on the wire line and two "Goose Eggs." The full moon was Wednesday night and I have read and heard conflicting stories about what affect that has on the fishing. Most of our offshore experience over the years has been with dolphin. They as most offshore fish we target are pelagics, open ocean dwellers and surface or shallow depth feeders. Dolphin are said to eat continually during the daylight hours, hence their fast growth rate, nearly an inch per month. Most dolphin caught by us and other anglers are not over two years old. They are said to not feed at night except during the full moon. I am not sure if the other species we have caught, tuna, wahoo and marlin, have the same eating habits, but I'm guessing they must at this point as we were skunked two days in a row during this time. Probably has nothing to do with it, probably CJM just took us to the wrong places. I kept telling her I wanted to fish "Hole in the Wall", a point that juts out off the southeast corner of Great Abaco Island, but she kept saying it was too far out of the way. "Exactly", I would say and that is why it would be loaded with fish. I guess I will have to figure out another time to get there.

Week four consisted of two days with a dark cloud over our heads but lots of free wash water for FF III, one moving day, one great fishing day, two terrible fishing days and a day to do some light service and cleaning on the boat as we awaited the arrival of the newlyweds. The weather forecast looks great for the next few days so we hope to change our luck.

CTM