Today we took the Canyon Runner charter of Lee and Stewart aboard the Big Boy with Capt. Jason, mates Rudy and myself. We Started out with a bunch of small size tinkers off the blue roof and quickly got into some mahi and put two 8-10 lb fish in the boat. That was pretty much all the action for the morning. I didn't even hear a sailfish being caught all day up that way. With the slow action we decided to put some ballys out and troll south to the sword grounds. That was also a little slow but we did manage 3 more mahi up to 12lbs and had a few more hits.
We got set up just before sundown and began the wait. Tinkers were thick under the boat...as we watched them dissapear our closest float got hit and we were tight on a smallish sword. Stew reeled it right to the boat it then proceeded to dash and dart every which way and we ended up losing him in the prop, by the looks of him a 50" fish (7:30). The next bite came around 9:00 but we never came tight, the bait just got swatted. Now its getting late and the wind was comming up...but around 12am we see a sword swat through the school of tinkers, eat 2 and swim off..nice fish definately over 100lbs. Our hopes were then livened and at 12:15 we get a nice hit and come tight. Fish starts taking some line so we start the boat up and keep it off the transom. After 20 minutes we have the fish straight up and down, the tip goes slack and Lee starts cranking...the fish takes off up the side of the boat, almost jumps over the bow rail, bashes into the side of the boat (does that count as a release?) and he spit the hook (12:45), fish looked about 120lbs when he jumped. We get the lines back out, and as i was putting the second float out, the first one gets hit and we are tight again on a nice fish. We clear the lines and start manuvering the boat. Back and forth for 45 minutes with the fish while lee and stew were taking turns on the rod. The fish is now only 40' away, we see color and the light stick and then....slack! pulled the hook was a popular term that night along with some other choice words! See you guys in a few weeks to start round 4!
Justin
Canyon Runner Sportfishing