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!
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