Surfing dolphins, Albacore, sharks coming up out of the depths... It was an interesting day at sea. And my tail end suitably bruised by the trip back, wich was a little lumpy. The dolphin were magnificent, surfing in our bow wave close enough to splash us. The Albacore (I am pretty sure they were juvenile Albacore, I saw low pectorals, but it could have been skipjack) were frustrating. They let us get close enough to see their little fat bodies, leaping, but wouldn't take anything we had to offer, and were inclinded to sound when we got too close. Any advice on how to catch them, much appreciated. Jamie caught and retured a number of small charcharinid sharks - 6-10 inch long with nasty teeth, in the days old category, and I got taken by a very big one that ate all my tackle (3 hooks) and swam off, leaving me with burned hands and no tackle. Then, later, one followed jamie's flathead up, but didn't take it. That is the first time in 3 years I've ever seen a shark. We did a steady but slow trade in flathead - 27 I think, and I seemed to be the prince of the few tiny fish we returned (I returned about 3, and a gurnard perch, I don't think Jamie got one small one - not my day)about 6kg of fillets, which at todays prices would be treat if we were to buy them - of course not happening. Then we had bumpy trip home and a tricky surf extraction. No disasters, but a few exciting moments.
And now to shower and bed. But on days like this it is easy to be happy and love the island life.
I've been fishing a few times for them. I never had much luck chumming and bait casting. What I did have success with was trolling feather rigs and squid skirt type rigs. Never had much luck trolling live bait either.
ReplyDeleteIt's nice you can get to them so easily, in North Carolina we'd have to go out ten or fifteen miles for the edge of the Gulf Stream which is where they seemed to prefer. Of course, once out there you could also go for King Mackerel, Dolphin (not the mammal)and Blue Tail Tuna.
Juvenile albacore and skipjack will come closer inshore here - just as well, the shelf is even further out here. Beyond my means and beyond our boats, although there are a few boats on the island that can get out there (we get bluefin and marlin out there, but trolling is a fuel expensive, time consuming process. Fine if you're rich and have a skipper who knows where to go, what speed to troll. Not so good if you're fairly broke and need to balance the cost of the trip against meals in the freezer, and don't have the experience) These I judged to be in the 4-5 kg range - so quite small. We didn't have any fish bait at all, just squid, so we were trolling spoons - I think perhaps too big. I've caught bonito on feathers before, I must make up some with the fly-tying stuff. Sadly we don't get Dorado/mahi mahi/dolphin fish here. They're rather like the fish that appears on my family coat of arms (which is odd in itself, I guess).
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