Had a cousin from SC in town so I invited him to come chase his first sailfish. He brought a friend and we broke the dock around 7:30. The forecast had called for 15-20 NW but it was barely 7-8 kts so the ocean was flat. We put the brakes on just north of the condos and settled in with barely enough wind to hold light kites up but a good north current and clean water. Sounds ideal, right?
Two hours later we were staring at each other like "What the heck?" Our first bite came - a bonita. At least it was a fat one and put up a struggle. By 10:30 the wind dropped to nothing and the helium balloon went up.
Around 11:30 the wind came back on and went right to 15-20kts. Before I could change out the balloon we were hooked up and caught our first sail. Not fifteen minutes later and another sail was on the flat line. This fish headed north and wanted to mess with the charterboat "Top Shelf". Fortunately he was a gentleman and pushed his boat/lines out of the way. Seconds later he would be rewarded with good karma as a sail pounced on his kite bait.
Minutes later we get ours alongside, getting our photo op. I called "Top Shelf" to thank him for his courtesy and watched as his fish now pushed towards us. I hoped that would bring us the same result, but it wasn't to be. The rest of the day was uneventful save for a Hammerhead we tortured with a kite bait that he finally ate and some big blue runners on a bottom rod.
Once again the big cold front failed to produce big numbers but the beautiful weather and a couple fish made it all worthwhile. Two anglers met their first sailfish today. Since both had 6" and 30-40 lbs on me I wisely refrained from tossing them in the water as tradition would have.
A few friends had caught a pretty good amount of dolphin in the rain on Sunday but they never showed their faces today.
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Good report Tommy, thanks!
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My brother is in town tomorrow and a Sail virgin, may have to buy some gogs and see if we can bust his cherry on flatlined gogs.
Yes. Gogs. One was on a kite, the other on a flat line. Where are you fishing out of?