Finally a fishing report...and Happy Father's Day!

The morning started off as most of them do when we're going fishing. Lots of enthusiasm and preparation. We thought it a bit odd not seeing many boats on the river as we made our way to the Inlet, but when we got there, we could see many of them were waiting for the squall to pass. Fortunately, the rain wasn't terribly bad and the wait wasn't too long.

From the reports yesterday, we heard there was bait right off the Inlet. Sure enough, there was and we weren't the only boat there. We picked up a dozen or so greenies and off we went. We also heard the past few days that people were catching sailfish in 60-70 feet of water. Without a big neon sign flashing "FISH HERE", we picked a spot and got a couple of baits out.

The excitement started right away! We saw a sailfish free jump not to far from us and in a few minutes, he spied our bait and went after it! Frank got the hook set (to make sure we didn't lose the fish) and handed the rod over. We saw him jump another time or two, but then he stayed under for a while. After reeling for what seemed like forever, he started getting closer to the boat where we could see him. But he was pretty sneaky and kept trying to go under the boat. We finally got him close enough and Frank was ready to release him when he broke free. Our guess was that he was about 40-50 pounds and around 5 feet long. Everything went so smooth. What fun and what a team! (Tried posting the movie, but guess it was too long.) This was my first sailfish!

We put out another bait or two and went back over the spot where we caught the sailfish. Unfortunately the only thing we caught that time was a couple of ramora (worthless pesky fish!).
We decided to venture out a little deeper and found a very attractive slick with lots of weeds in it. (And a pair of mating green turtles.) We tried everything (trolling, chumming, drifting) but nothing was interested.

Chatter on the radio was all about sailfish today. Late in the afternoon we heard someone mention catching a dolphin, but that was it. As we were drifting with the last of our live bait, we saw a large sailfish free jumping! We adjusted our location, but he must have had a something else in mind and we didn't see him again.

All of our patience and effort paid off! Even though it was only one fish, we finally caught a sailfish! In keeping with tradition of 'first sailfish catches', Frank wanted to throw me overboard (while at sea or at the dock), but since we didn't have a boat ladder and I didn't want to get in the yucky canal water, he settled for spraying me with the hose when we got back to the Fish Camp. :o)

All in all, it was a great day and I hope was a nice Father's Day for Frank.