Author: Paul Van Dyck

Yesterday, the day we crossed the equator, I finally started thinking about fishing again. The wind had died off a little so it would be a bit easier to reel in a fish. BUT, I never expected to hook up to something this big.

In the morning I put out a blue chugger with a hoochie under it, the same one I caught the Mahi with. Though this time I had made a few improvements to it, that ended up getting this fish close to us. I added 150LB mono leader to it because I didn’t think the 60lb leader was going to cut it, and crimps so the knot wouldn’t slip out.

We’d had already had four bites that day. One ran for a second, and then dropped the lure. The others were just quick little bites.

James and I were goofing off down below when the reel started screaming. I yelled “don’t touch it!” because I wanted to put the drag on properly to set the hook, which is slowly increasing the drag on the reel so it doesn’t rip the hook out of the fish’s mouth. 

I could immediately tell this fish was huge, because it took almost 5 minutes to stop it from running. We furled up the jib so we could slow down and make it easier to reel it in, and we started cranking. At the start it was pretty hard reeling it in, but after a while it got easier.

The fish was so big that the drag wasn’t enough, so I had to put my thumb on the spool and dad had to clamp the line against the rod it would stop running. I realized early in this fight that we were going to have to tire out this fish. Also the sun was fairly low on the horizon and I was worried about it getting dark while we were fighting the fish.

We started gaining line, inch after inch. I was reeling it in while my dad was pulling the line in through the rod. It was definitely a team effort. 

After a little bit it started diving deep on its side, and it felt like pulling plywood through the water. Eventually we got color, which is when you can see the fish through the water. It was still 15 to 30 feet deep but it became obvious that it was a monster yellowfin tuna, because you could see the giant yellow fins coming out of its body.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. It looked like it was fake. It was so cool.

Then it started pinwheeling around the boat, which is when it does circles desperately trying to get the hook out of its mouth. We luckily got it to the surface after thinking the rod was about to snap, because it was at a 160 degree angle. It was bending the rod so much that it started to twist, so the end eye was facing down on the rod, not facing the top. The problem with that is that you can rip the eye right out. But that is not what I was worried about, I was worried about the rod delaminating and snapping.

Of course that didn’t happen though because our rod is capable of catching hundred pound fish. 

Then the fish got close to the surface, close enough that its pectoral fin was above the water. What I love about tuna so much is that they can make no splash when coming up to the surface on their sides. 

We got it to the surface and that’s when I realized actually how big the fish was. I think the fish was 60 to 80lbs, and about 4 feet long. The girth was probably about three feet.

Mom and James were taking videos and preparing the gaff, while dad and I were trying to manage reeling the fish closer. 

And just like that, it cut the line. On the Windpilot mount on our transom.

It’s probably my fault that I didn’t make that long of a leader, because braid chafes a lot more than mono. If we had a longer leader or even a top-shot on, it wouldn’t have cut the line on the Windpilot. 

And we saw it slowly swimming off. It was swimming slowly because it was tired and we’d given it a real workout. 

Luckily the fish is okay. Hooks nowadays are designed to rust out of the fish’s mouths a tiny bit of time in the saltwater. 

One lesson we learned is, make a longer leader, and don’t have a windpilot on when you’re chasing giants! We were in a good situation that we could slow the boat down easily, and that made it much easier to fight the fish. 

Later on this trip I’m looking forward to catching more tuna, maybe some mahi, and definitely wahoo. I think wahoo is my favorite fish to eat. Wahoo sashimi is amazing!

When I get older, I’m coming back to Hawaii to catch a true monster. Also I’d like to go to Venice Louisiana to catch magnums on spinning tackle!

PS. We just had a boobie dive for our lure! We are reeling it in so we don’t hook him. Better be careful out here, boobie!

Yesterday we were sailing downwind going 8 knots surfing backs of waves in 22kn of breeze when I glanced over at the rod and about 5 seconds later it doubled over and the reel started screaming! By the time I put my lifejacket on and clipped in, the fish had already taken about 150 yards of line. I started reeling it in having zero idea what kind of fish it was. After a minute or two I realized it was probably not a Mahi since it probably would have jumped by then. I could tell it was a big fish by my standards.

About three or four minutes in to the fight I swapped reeling it in with my dad, and then after ten more minutes of reeling it popped up on the surface, which means the fight was nearly done. But it was still really far away.

By then I had already made my guess about what kind of fish it was: a Tuna. I thought it was a Tuna because of the tail shakes like I described I felt with the shark. When the fish was about 50 yards behind Flyer I started speculating that it could possibly be a Wahoo or Spanish Mackerel. The closer it got the more I thought it would be a smaller tuna based on how it looked about 25 yards behind Flyer.

I kept reeling it in as quick as possible and I soon realized this definitely was not a tuna, because it was too long. Shortly after that I saw the zebra pattern on its side and realized it was actually a wahoo!

Wahoo have the sharpest teeth of any pelagic fish that people sportfish for. Wahoo are also some of the fastest fish in the ocean. They’re so fast that people will troll for them at around 15 miles per hour, which is called high speed wahoo trolling. We were going fast enough that it made sense that we could catch a wahoo!

We got it close enough to gaffe my dad asked “should we keep this fish?” and I thought it was a no-brainer to keep because wahoo taste really good, and this one was big enough that we could have it for half a week of meals. The first time I’ve ever had wahoo was with my grandparents in Bermuda, and ever since then I’ve wanted to catch wahoo.

Now, the hard part, which was gaffing it. We tried to repeat what we did with the mahi. Dad got the line around the gaffe hook, pulled it close enough, and then grabbed a hold of the line and gaffed it. And then he pulled it up onto the aft deck, and we quickly realized it was one of the coolest if not the coolest looking fish we’ve had on this boat. 

Then we took a ton of photos and figured out how to ike-jime it. If you don’t know what ike-jime is, go back and read my Mahi Mahi post. Then we weighed the fish with a crane scale and it turned out that it weighed 15lbs 10oz. Then we filleted it and everyone had a little bit of sushi. Wahoo is also called Ono in Hawaiian, and you may have had it at a sushi restaurant.

We cut the fillets up and some of them we cooked for dinner. My dad seared it on a pan with fish seasoning that Cameron gave us in Friday Harbor. We had rice, carrots and cabbage with it. It was amazing.

PS: we just had what we think was a 45lb tuna on the rod that practically spooled us. It pulled the hook after we fought it for a really long time. 

As you know we put out lines every day to try to catch fish. But this was the one thing I did not expect to catch! It was also the perfect timing to catch a fish. 

On Tuesday I had two online classes for school. The first one was Computer, which started at 1 and ended at 1:45. I then have fifteen minutes until my next class which yesterday was Geography. 

At about 1:47 I saw the hand line pop from its quick release and thought “oh, another Tuna!” Then I saw it go slack, that means the fish bit the lure, didn’t get hooked, and then swam away. So I sat back down and about two seconds later I heard the clicker for the rod go off. And this time it was ON!

I ran to get ready to start fighting the fish while the drag was still going. I picked the rod up, ready to fight it, and I felt the tail shakes. Tail shakes are when you are fighting a tuna and their tails are super powerful and you can feel it through the rod. By then I was almost 100% sure it was a tuna. 

Then it popped up on the surface because we were still going fast, and it looked then like it was possibly a tuna or… a shark?

I reeled it closer to the boat and I got a close look at it and it turned out it was a juvenile thresher shark! Probably 8-10lbs. 

There’s no way that we would eat a bull shark, especially a small one like this. Then we had to unhook it, but the pliers were in my room. So I had to keep the shark in the water with water flowing over its gills to keep it alive. 

Then mom showed up with the pliers and passed them to dad while I tried to bring the shark closer to dad but the gaffe was in the way. So I was holding the gaffe and the rod at the same time and started panicking because I can’t hold both at the same time for long. So I started yelling “grab the gaffe!” because I knew I was about to drop the rod. Finally mom got the gaffe and dad pulled the line up, and unhooked the shark with the pliers and it swam away. 

In Sportfishing it is considered a successful catch when the leader – which is the portion of the line holding the lure- touches the tip of the rod

We are almost 100% sure the shark is completely fine because it was not bleeding at all and their mouths are really tough. 

Then I asked “what time is it?” And it turned out that I had 3 minutes until Geography started. When my class started, the first thing I told my teacher was “I just caught a shark!” 

I’ve been waiting five and a half months to catch a Mahi Mahi, and the first day at sea we hooked up to a 20lb, 3.5’ long cow Mahi! 

We were trolling a 4” cedar plug on a handline around 100’ behind Flyer, and a blue chugger with a hoochie under it on our Shimano TLD 50 reel on an Ugly Stik rod. Back in La Paz, there was a boat that pulled in that had a guy who was really knowledgeable about Mahi fishing and told us to run that exact lure behind the boat while trolling.

The second the fish hooked up, we saw it jumping like a marlin about 200 feet behind the boat, and it was all blue!

Mahi are my favorite fish because they are insanely hard to fight. They also change colors! They can be chartreuse, blue, and white! They might even show black spots.

My dad and I had to take turns reeling it in because it was spooling our reel. At the time, we were sailing along in about 28 knots of wind at about 8 knots- it was a real sleigh ride! We tried to slow the boat down by furling the jib, but it didn’t help too much. After about 25 minutes of fighting, we finally got it to the boat and my dad gaffed it about half way across its body and we hoisted aboard.

We tried to ike-jime it (a Japanese technique that helps the meat taste better and last longer in the fridge), but it was really hard to figure out where to insert the metal rod. We bled the fish and took some photos – a lot of photos!

Sport Fish of the Pacific lists the food value of Mahi as “none better.”Pelle got sushi for dinner and we filled the refrigerator with Mahi fillets!