We decided to brave the swell yesterday and go scratch the itch. It was one of the more interesting days on the water I’ve had and way to much happened so I won’t remember for a play by play. The cameras weren’t out much so it’s almost not worth talking about but I can probably scare up one pic off porter.
First up since the last trip I tried moving the transducer about a mm higher and that was a terrible idea. I’m still looking for the right position and it’ll now be moving down until I get the picture I want at speed. By moving it up I’ve got nothing but noise on plane. At 6-7 knots if I kept the motor trimmed up we had a clear picture but it wasn’t very good.
I also removed the hydrofoil off the outboard because I wanted to see how it ran without it. Best move ever. The boat handles swell so much better without it. The trim tabs are more responsive and we made better time into every direction of sea with a softer ride then anytime in the past. I also get more response when I stand on it with no ventilation and much more instantaneous throttle response.
I also snapped a spinning rod at the gas station when I climbed in the boat to put my lunch and snacks in the fridge. I was hoping that’s where the bad luck would end but it wasn’t to be.
And back to fishing. The seas were big for a 21’ boat. From the live buoy out there we had between 2.5-3m swell on a 10 second interval but very little wind chop. The boat ramp was empty which is never a good sign and we fished the entire day without seeing or hearing another fishing boat. We saw a pair of trawlers and a few cargo ships but we had the ocean to ourselves. The swell was big but manageable and it was more comfortable then the last few trips because of the interval and lack of wind chop.
We started on the 21 mile. Within a couple minutes the shotgun went off and a marlin started tail walking, I was clearing the first line and porter was dealing with the fish. I was also shooting my mouth off about how good the day was going to be considering we had only started and already had old stick nose on a hook. Then he dropped it.
The spread went back out and about half an hour later I picked up a Spaniard around the meter mark. We then had several more strikes of which some were unidentified and two more were marlin. Two of the marlin were on the hook and being fought when the line was cut by teeth on the mono above the double. The end of the line that came back both times was frayed like it had been flossed in a set of teeth and about all I can think is that the mackerel were hitting at the Aussie plait where my double starts but I honestly don’t know. We lost all three of my favourite shotgun lures and had three skirted lures destroyed before deciding the Spaniards weren’t worth dealing with and we had to go to deeper water to shake them off. So we set off for the hards where we had that big day a month ago. We ran up there at speed and dropped seven lines in the water and took off trolling again. We did a lap without any sign of life then found a current line so I tucked into it and shortly after we were getting hit by marlin again. Porter was on the rod and dropped four in a row. At that point he decided I should try and hook one so I proceeded to drop another three that we saw jumping and several more strikes that we didn’t see the fish. We also dropped a wahoo up there and picked up a mack tuna.
About 15:30 we ripped back down to where we started and trolled a couple laps. All we got were two more Spaniards around the same size as the first and we put them in the kill tank before heading home.
All up we saw and lost a minimum of ten marlin and one wahoo plus another 8-10 strikes that we didn’t see the fish and don’t know what they were. We lost three lures, one complete topshot and I need to change six skirts on three other lures. The conversion ratio was the worst I’ve ever experienced. I reset the trip odometer when we left the ramp and we did 114nm so 211 km in 13.5 hours yesterday for three measly Spaniards.
The only good news is the fish are around and we are certainly raising them and getting strikes. Next week It calms down and I plan on taking the chance to redeem myself.