OC Mystery fish/Mahis on Reel Buster 6 21 08

[David]

With Crew of Derek,Steve,Tom and Dave we headed To the Middle Sausage for a quick troll over but found no love and only one chunker there.Then on to my origional destination Poormans to find a break.Never found water higher than 73 out to 800 fathoms but as soon as we were a mile from the tip we started putting out the spread and one of 3 new lures I have had a while gets hooked up on a nice gafferfor 1st timer Dave.We saw lots of Dolphins that came to the boat but found only the one Mahi w/them.Saw numerous airbourne attempts as Mahis were skying on my baits today making for many short battle hookups.Got in another nice gaffer between the misses.Got a real nice one in and then it happened Starboard outside B/W Islaner goes off the rigger like a shot and now the battle is on w/Derek driving... er as it was holding on for dear life as the fish was smoking the line off my 50 Avet like a line winder.This battle ended w a broken line behind the knot.Then I saw something Big leap in that area 300 ft back and oh shit there goes the Bird/flock of birds/Islander I had just minutes earlier told the crew to deploy. Steve is on the reel a TRX50 and hollers we were getting spooled and w/20 lbs of drag...I run back and ease the drag lever past strike a little then go back up to the helm. About then Steve said he pushed the Drag to max 40 lbs and this fish almost pulled him out of the boat if had not have been for Tom grabbing him.: Quickly his fight too ended as we probably needed 130 gear to whip this beast whatever it was. We examined our leader later and found approx. 24" abraded line above the knot making us guess that we had a BIG Blue on (If so First)as we believed if a Shark more of the line would have shown damage.W/O seeing who knows what do you guys think? Went 3/10 (crap) But kept 3 gaffers to 25 lbs and saw Pilots and Know now there is some BIG fish out there...Daves first Offshore trip was packed w/excitment that will be tough to match on future trips,and OH BTW He's Hooked like us too.

[VanN]

Dave - sorry that I missed the trip. Sounds like things are heating up nicely offshore, and I hope that "Classic Hooker" will be operational by next weekend. I wonder what the Mystery Fish was. Sounds like you hooked up to the Navy's "Sea Wolf"! I'm wondering if it wasn't either a huge mako or a huge wahoo, although we haven't heard of the big wahoos being in our area this year. But if you were still at trolling speed, a huge (ie, over 60 lb) wahoo can take line awfully fast unless you can back down or at least turn towards them. Wish I could have seen that action!

Van

[David]

Van on the way to PM I had to alter course to stay clear of a Guided missle cruiser so maybe it was a Seal team sub on manuevers...Van 40 lbs of drag should have stopped even a 200 lber but this was WAY bigger than that All the crew agree...Derek said he didn't want any more rod time today w/a monster like that again...

[Russ D]

Wow sounds like one crazy trip. Hey Dave as the spool gets smaller the drag starts to actually increase even if you don't touch the lever. If you had your reel set at 40# at max when full, then near the bottom of the spool the effective drag would have been close to 80#'s. On big blues I've been taught to actually back off the drag and give chase.Some guys will even go close to free spool when they get low as soon as they trun the boat into the fish. You'll never stop any really big fish just by increasing the drag. You gotta be ready to move the boat and give chase.

[David]

Russ I'm w/ya I was in the process of turning(actually stopped at the anglers request) but it all was over in seconds w/all that drag it was still going out like there was none at all.As it turned out the fish saw the Birds after breaking off Derek and wanted to munch on that too till breakoff hangon Steve....

[Russ D]

Sounds like a big blue suit. Too bad you didn't get a peek!

[Hakuna Matata]

Thanks for the report, I got excited just reading it!

-JB

[saltyfishn]

wish you would have got a peak... thats happen to me twice...some buddies were fishing in the bay for cobia an hooked a porpoise about 6 or 7 foot they said... all i can think is poor tld 25

[WildeOne]

Dave, WTG ...sounds like an action packed trip. You always wonder with those mystery bites ...

==============================
Jim
23' Grady White Gulfstream "Get Reel"
Ocean Pines, MD

[derekd]

Dave - Again thanks for a great trip. Would have been nice to see the big mystery bite but I'm convinced it had to be a blue marlin especially based on the reports of a few other caught in the area. See you next time.