Got the invite to roll on Matt's big yellow taxi (sweet 36 Contender) Sun/Mon. Had a crew full of fish killers. David (Aways-Gone Fishing), Anthony (ajlsro), Daniel (texas-offshore), Matt (MattS), DJ, and yours truly. And what a time we had.
We had decided to blow of swordfishing for tuna, since the bite has been good as of late. Well, that didn't work out. The tuna bite was absolutely terrible. We stuggled to catch even blacken. But no worries, with the full moon, we thought tuna fishing might be slow, so we had a PLAN B BABY…..
We did get a nice dodo on a popper that evening, and picked off her hubby the next morning. I had a terrible year on mahi, so this was a pleasant surprise.
OK, back to PLAN B. After all night of throwing poppers, jigging, and live baiting, with several tuna dances thrown in there, plenty of 80s hairband rocking the boat, we decided to whip out the 900# cable we called plan B. We decided we wanted to catch something as yummy as a swordfish, but that wanted to eat us just as bad. We were MAKO hunting. Didn't take long to get one on the line. It came up to the surface, we all lost our breath. BIG fish, but never had the hook. Lost another, and THEN, the third time was a charm.
Let me tell you, these things are AMAZING. This beast dumped a 50WLRSA under 40# of drag like it didn't exist. After Daniel and I finally got it out of the rod holder, Daniel and DJ got me strapped in. Oh lord. My first question, "there is a safety line on this rod, right???". The first mistake it made was to hit Don Savage's new rod THE BEAST. Man, that rod is something else. It will own anything in this gulf. No doubt. This pig pulled like no other. The fight didn't last long, maybe 30 minutes. But that's when it got good…..
Matt was waiting with flying gaff in hand, David straight gaff, DJ straight gaff, Daniel with gloves, and Anthony with HD video camera. Matt stuck this pig with the flying gaff and all hell broke loose. Finally subdued the sea monster, and was able to lay the BOOM to him. Then the next chore was getting him over the gunwale. Dang my back still hurts….Huge team effort here. Couldn't have done it without everyone. So now we have a close to 300# Mako on the deck. What the heck do we do now? No worries, just toss it in the SMALL fish box. DAMNN you gotta love Contenders. 285# at Bridgebait. Jason at Bridge bait is the man!!! Cleaned that sucker, and we walked off with, i don't know, 100# of meat?
Jason was also kind enough to cut out the jaws. SICK!!!
I am sure I left a ton out. I try to do the best I can to tell the story, but the words never do it justice. If yall ever see any of these fellas, ask them how I was almost killed by an Egret 115 miles offshore. Matt, thanks for driving the taxi. It really was a pleasure fishing with you and DJ. Dan, Anthony, David, you guys are the best. I had a great time. Ready to roll again.
What's next??? BOOM!
Brandon
Another Night at BV/Nancen. No Tuna, BUT……….
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