February 29, 2012 Big Ahi Are Here!

Today Shell and Cathy joined my deckhand Keith and me for a full day charter.  Yesterday we caught a nice ahi in the porpoise school so our game plan was again to look for porpoise.  Shell and Cathy met us 30 minutes early at the boat…6am!  They were both really excited and wanted to get a jump on the action.  It was still dark but we left the harbor early and headed north.  About an hour out Keith and I saw a small mark (hopefully a marlin) on our sounder.  Usually a fish will rise to the lures pretty quick but we waited a few minutes with nothing showing.  Then a small blue marlin swirled on the stinger lure and missed it.  It came back three more times and we just couldn’t hook it.  Frustrated we continued on.  The water was starting to get rough, a good sign that the porpoise would be near.  We searched farther offshore and then I saw the tell-tale splash of a jumping porpoise.  We switched over to our ahi pattern and made passes on the school.  I saw a nice mark at 40 fathoms but no bite.  More boats started to arrive in the pile.  We made pass after pass and finally the long rigger came down hard!  Cathy jumped in the chair as line peeled off the reel.  Keith coached her on fighting the fish and cleared the lines.  Cathy did a great job and landed her first and biggest fish of her life in about 30 minutes!  Her ahi weighed 141lbs!  Unfortunately, Shell wasn’t feeling to good but he got to see her land a really nice fish.  We set up again and worked the porpoise school.  On our next pass I had mark at 40 fathoms and again the long rigger came down.  This time, line screamed off the reel even faster!  Cathy was still pretty tired from her fight and Shell was still a little quezzy so Keith jumped in the chair and started working on the fish.  This fish fought a lot harder than the first and Keith and I looked at each other and both agreed this was a big one.  Keith worked the fish like a pro and finally got it to leader in about 40 minutes.  Lucky for him this was also his biggest ahi he has ever landed which weighed a whopping 209lbs, beating his largest by 4 lbs!