Beautiful Lures

Mark White Trolling Lures - functional art!

SKUNKED!!!

I got SKUNKED yesterday - not one fish on the offshore rod or the flyrod - an extremely rare event indeed. I am okay with this - 3 of the 4 fish landed on the boat yesterday (one yellowfin and two bonito) took the lures I offered, I just didn't get to reel them in. Everyone needs a little humility every now and then to keep them humble - Saturday was my humble pie eating day.

Authentic Battle Damage

In preparation for the Saturday Offshore trip, I re-skirted several lures. The first few of these I did a while back were really tough - particularly getting the skirts on. Now, having the right size skirts and a bit more experience makes this an easier evolution. The newly skirted lures paid off (for some, not all) - more details in the next post...

Heavy Price for Fishing

I paid up today - two lures lost to big fish. They have to win sometimes too huh? Well it didn't stop there - in total we lost another two hookups. I felt like a complete loser today. So here we go - "SHAKE-IT-OFF" - and with that, we started catching and you can see the total for the boat in the picture. Not a bad day (for us - for the one yellowfin, it was a really bad day - bitten in half by a shark is not enviable), but not as good as last weekend.

Short but Productive Outting

Punched out of work on Friday afternoon and trolled the lagoon. Boated three BFTs and a GT in an hour and a half. The GT came in on a kite rod - ironic how the biggest fish was caught on the setup least able to handle it (good on you Mike for wrestling that beast on that setup). Always an awesome time. The colors on the Blue Fin Trevally always amaze me. I did a bunch of prints of these guys including my first double (the BFTs). We'll see how they turn out. After this week, I am essentially turning over so I can go home. It's been a long year away from my family and I am more than ready to go back to them. But while I am waiting, I'll make a bunch of gyotaku to work on when I'm back with the kids and La ;)

Passing time on Sunday

So one of my fishing buddies gets a windfall from someone looking to dump all his gear. He forks over $500 and in return he has several rod/reel combos. So many that he doesn't mind parting with a Shimano TLD50. I fork over $100 and I have a slightly used heavy duty reel. I got a great deal and I wanted to return the favor. I printed the last fish Rodney caught (on the Mark White Squid lures on Saturday's trip - he landed the big Wahoo). He is going home to see his son and wanted to show him the fish he was catching. I knocked this gyotaku out in a day. Oh - and I went flyfishing - this trip made me appreciate the secret spot I found earlier - the fish here out in the open were a lot more spooky. My old hole was a barrel where I could focus on larger fish looking to avoid larger fish. I did manage to catch a two-barred goatfish, and two groupers on a clouser"ish" that I tied.

Offshore Trifecta!!!

I caught a rather large Mahi, a decent sized Wahoo and a Yellowfin Tuna on my trolling rod today. Mark White Squid Head lures - fish catching mojo!!! As a boat, we landed 3 Mahi, 3 Yellowfin, 3 Wahoo and 2 Bonitos - it doesn't get much better than this -

Ammunition

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Fish like these. You should too - If you do procure a few to try, be careful - as they will make everything else in your tackle boxes obsolete and if you have any streak of OCD, you'll have to convert. I have trolled these for several months now and when there are droughts where the fish are not biting, I am often the only one catching (I have never been skunked yet). When the fish are striking in groups, I consistently bring in the big ones. I have lost a few of these to some big fish I never got to see, but that in itself is a testimony to the effectiveness of these lures - weight, durability, appearance, and possibly the best attribute being the turbulence pattern put out by the textured bottom surface and metallic based electric signals - resin may be cheaper, but in my book you get what you pay for. I don't mean to sound jaded or conceded here - and this isn't bragging. I don't get paid by Mark White and I do have other lures. I am just sharing my experience and the analysis I have made (I'm an engineer - even in my pastimes I'll analyze data if it's there). If you are serious about fishing by trolling, you need these - or maybe you should stick to what works for you and stick to fishing (I'll be catching!)

Here's the one I caught

I haven't been able to sleep lately - bad jetlag. I'm not even fighting it anymore - one more round of hellacious travel coming up - so why bother. The good part of it all is I have plenty of time to work on fun stuff - rigging lures and improving the gyotaku I've been working on. Here is the barracuda I caught earlier this week. 32" from nose to fork. Mark - if you're reading this, it took a 7" light blue pusher. As far as the gyotaku - where there was once frustration for me, there is now only satisfaction (Ron - many mahalos again!!!) - I have come to realize the current wide paper I have (which doesn't have the visible fibers) isn't really optimal for gyotaku. I doesn't take the sumi ink from the printing or the color application very well - relatively speaking the shoji door type paper is as good as it gets (same paper I used for the shark bitten barracuda). So with the passing of time (I'm still not sleepy), dawn will soon break and despite the new moon, I'll try landing a few more leviathans. Fly first, spinning when the tide starts to fill in. More posts later today.

Post Work Fishing

The fellas (Rod and Steve) and I left work regular time today (for once right???!!!!).

We headed straight for the marina and took out a Mako. We headed south for the normal trolling spot and dragged squid skirts around for a bit. We only had an hour total so we had to be picky where we went.

We didn't get one bite.

That is until we were headed back in.

We drove over this school of Big Eyed Trevally. None of them hit the lures. The picture shows them pretty clearly, but the school was really big - just weren't hungry.

Then we said "heck - do another pass"

The middle line (medium heavy spinning rod that lost the other squid lure this weekend) started singing as line peeled off the reel.

The fish just kept taking line and made a beeline for the shore. I was finally able to stop it with the drag. It jumped and showed a long silhouette and dark shading. After five or so minutes of fighting, it jumped again - I thought it was a tarpon.

I finally reeled it in to the boat - five foot barracuda - as thick around as my upper thigh.

The three of us stood there wondering how we were going to get the hook out of its mouth. I definitely wanted my lure back...

The big guy solved the problem for us by finally biting through the leaders aft of the lure head.

This was one that got away - but to everyone's benefit!!!

Awesome pre-dinner fight!

Trolling Payday

AWESOME!!!!

20# GT!

BAM!!!

Saturday Afternoon Trolling

Squid Skirt Lures RULE!!!

I was using a Mark White 7" Bullet in Cobalt Blue -

We did well today!

Trolling and Flyfishing are definitely polar opposites, but the one thing they have in common is "when it's good - it's good", "when it's bad, it is down right frustrating and hugely suckomungous.

Trolling today did not suck, not like losing three BFT after hook ups (this morning).