Yahoo - Wahoo !

[CaptJRivers]

What a great week of fishing it was! First, specks and big reds on Wednesday; then specks and jacks on Thursday, and the jacks were thick. We hooked 11 big jacks and landed 8, and at one time we had 4 big jacks on at once! Was that ever crazy, but my crew managed to work it out and land all four fish for some great photos.
The big news is on Saturday, I caught my very first WAHOO!
I’ll make it short and sweet. I went out offshore on Saturday, as they were calling for calm seas. My charter canceled a couple of days earlier, so I called Ed Mashburn, and said, “Lets go fun fishing and maybe write a story for the Florida Sport Fishing Magazine.” We headed offshore to do a little bottom bumping, and we managed to get a good mess of snapper right away. I then headed further south to a spot that a friend recommended for wahoo.
We rigged up the rods and deployed the baits, and after about and hour of trolling, we had our first knockdown. The fish crashed the bait like it was his last meal. I don’t have any big trolling rigs, so all I had was my king rods spooled with 20-30 lb tackle on Speed Master with 400+ yards of line. I was using a red and white trolling lure with a silver head, known as a Wahoo Buster, rigged with 5ft of 125 lb leader and a mackerel belly strip.
I watched this massive fish crash on the lure, and then saw him all lit up underneath the boat. He walked me around the boat 5 or so times and made 3 – 4 good runs. After an emotionally charged 30-minute fight, I finally had my first ever Hooter in the boat. We estimated it to be over 50lbs, but it weighed in at 42.5 lbs. I think that if I would have done a better gaff job, and he would not have bled out so badly and I would have had more ice on him, he would have went at least 45 – 47 lbs. He almost didn’t fit into my King bag; I had to bend the tail a bit, since he was well over 60” long.
According to the fish calculator website a 60” Wahoo will weigh approx 46.3 lbs.

It will be a day to remember forever!
Here are a few more pics.



We did a quick clean up on the boat and I had an extra shirt and had to change after I got all bloodied up

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[CaptJoeVerdino]

Now that's a nice fish!!!!!!!

Did you have a British accent at the end of the day? Cause you were a "Bloody Mess".[sly]
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[CaptJRivers]

Was I every bloody!!!

When I went to gaff the fish, I hit the head right in the gill and it didn't go in very well. I didn't have my long King Gaff with me I left it at home so I had to use a shorter 3ft gaff, anyway the fish was pissed and he went under the boat.

I thought for sure I was going to loose him. So when he resurfaced I told myself that I was going to gaff him no matter where and bring him in the boat. As you can see I hit a main blood vessel and he blead out like a stuck pig.

It was crazy to say the least. Now that I look back on things I could have just reached down and grabbed him under the gills and pulled him in, but with all the excitement I was not thinking about it.

My friends that I had with me had ever gaffed a fish before and they didn't want to try because if they lost the fish they would have felt bad i'm sure.

We got some very cool pics with the fish and me bloody and also some with the deck cleanded up. I happen to have a clean shirt to change into so that helped out some.

It was my first hoo and I was so pumped, when I saw him in the water I new it was a good fish.

I hope to get out again a few times this summer and try my luck again, but it's going to be hard to top that one 45 - 50lb Wahoo is pretty cool, especially for a first fish.


It doesn't look like I'm going to be going out much this week as the weather is calling for winds 20knts or better for 3 days.
Thank for the kind words.
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[tubeN2]

Good job on the Hooter Skipper. Those are always fun to catch. I'm glad you got to enjoy your first one up close and personal.[cool]
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