After a great previous day on the grounds we headed back up there with a few local return clients of ours. After hearing the live bait bite worked well for others yesterday we decided to do the same. Bait was hard to catch, but after 40 minutes of trying we finally got our first set of baits. It took longer than we expected to get bit but after a few hours of trolling the live tunas our long bait went off. Shortly into the fight we recognized the pattern of a shark and soon enough our instincts were proved correct and we released an unwanted bronze whaler.We quickly got a new bait and ran it off the ledge. Shortly after getting into the deep we got bit right away. This time it was a small blue which we quickly released. On our third attempt at catching baits we got lucky and caught two beautiful skipjack tunas, which we ran off the ledge in a hurry. It only took a few minutes for another marlin to find our bait. Tracy saved the second bait knowing how important those baits can be when the bite turns on. After striking the second blue we noticed we had foul hooked it in the back. Instead of taking it easy and letting the fish tire out and possibly die as most foul hooked fish do, we chased the blue down only to have the hook tear out 15 feet from Tracy getting the leader. As we see it getting the fish to the boat as fast as possible greatly improves their chance at survival. After pulling the hook we set back out with the skippy we had saved. Within moments of getting set up we were bit again. We tagged another small blue and the day with two blue marlin tagged.
(Originally posted on February 24, 2009)