February 10, 2012 Brett’s Hawaiian Billfish Slam!

This was Brett’s 4th and final day fishing with me.  Yesterday, we completed his IGFA Billfish Royal Slam and today we decided to just have fun and see what we could get into.  It was also Brett’s birthday so we had a lot of luck on our side before the day even started.  Brett arrrived at the boat around 6:15am.  A good friend of mine Keith and my son Fisher joined us.  Keith has deckhand for me before and my son Fisher is on a school mentorship program so he decided to fish today too.  The ocean calmed down since yesterday and our plan was to head right back to where we were getting good bites in the last few days.  The nice thing about fishing almost everyday is you know where to go and where not to go to put your clients on fish.  We worked our way back up to the Grounds without a bite.  As we turned towards the backside of the Grounds we saw good signs of bait so we switched over from lures to live bait.  We caught two nice baits and sent them back.  As we got into deeper water we got bit.  Again, as we had seen in the previous days, a big shark was at the other end.  Brett worked the big white-tip to the boat and we cut it free.  Back to the ledge we went to catch more bait.  It didn’t take long and we sent two fresh baits back.  Moments later the short bait went wild as a short-nose spearfish charged in.  Brett fought the 35lb spear to the boat in about 10 minutes.  We ran back to the ledge and caught two more baits and  sent them back.  It took a while but again the short bait was inhaled by a striped marlin just a few yards behind the boat.  Brett fought the 45lb stripey to the boat in under 15 minutes.  There was bait all over the ledge, more than I had seen in the last week and I just knew more fish were in the area.  We ran back to the ledge and put the bait rods back out.  We hooked another bait and Brett started to fight it when he yelled, “this is something different!”  I looked back and saw a nice short nose spearfish jumping behind the boat!  I backed down hard on the fish trying not to put too much pressure on the light leader on the bait rod.  Brett did a great job of putting light pressure on the fish as to not break the 20lb leader.  After a 15 minute fight, Brett landed his second short nose spearfish that weighed about 35lbs.  I didn’t realize it until Keith said, “All we need is a blue marlin to get a Hawaiian Slam” (Blue marlin, striped marlin and spearfish).  We ran back to the ledge and caught two more baits.  It was getting late but I knew somewhere in all this bait there was a blue marlin…there just had to be!  We worked our way down the ledge and then it happened…the long bait was inhaled.  After letting the fish run with the bait, we throttled up to set the hook but nothing was there….Keith grabbed the line to “feel” for a bite.  As he held the bait he felt a distinct pull of a big fish and put the reel in free spool to feed it.  I pushed the boat forward and the line came tight with the tell-tale signs of a fish.  Brett buckled in and we watched as  small blue marlin came to the surface.  Brett fought the fish and in about 10 minutes had it to leader.  Unfortunately, the blue had swallowed the hook so we decide to kill it.  Brett’s blue marlin weighed 154lbs!  So, not only did Brett complete his IGFA Billfish Royal Slam, he also got his first Hawaiian Slam on his birthday!