March 4, 2004 - Battle with the Swords

[hannaman]

March 4, 2004

Battle with the Swords

The weather man was right on this time. We caught bait quick around the bouys in 3-5 then plowed through the occasional 6 footer out to the sword grounds. We took out 66 year young, John Keeler from Pennsylvania who has never caught a Swordfish but has caught everything else and needed this fish to complete his queast. So I took it easy on the throttles, but we were able to get the boat to skip a few times but I didn't want to push it and shatter any bones.

Our first fish was on within 15 minutes on the deep line. The battle was a solid 30 minutes. We had him leadered just out of gaff range and he did a die hard run right from the boat and pulled the hook. We set up again on the same drift and as I'm putting out my last rod I threw the squid overboard and sat down to tie my weight on, within seconds the line rips off my hand and we have a sword feeding at the boat, again, same thing happened to me on our last trip out. I knew the fish felt the hook because he did a vicious head shake and spit, but he came back and wacked the squid right off the hook. We had no more squid so we rigged a blue runner but the fish never came back.
Within 10 minutes the 250 line goes off pretty steady. I cranked down on this fish and he must of felt the hook set painfully because he did one of those blistering runs where I thought he was going to dump the Finnore 50 wide. He came awfully close, we must of had only a couple of hundred yards left on the spool. Over 2 hours later the fish comes boatside, the wind on leader comes on the reel, goes off the reel, comes on , comes off. This guy thrashes all over, kicks us the tail and soaks us, he did a few jumps at the boat and finally I get to stick him. We thought we had a fish over 200 pounds for sure. In the boat he was no more than 125 pounds. Still a great fish, hooked in the corner of his jaw. My digital camera wouldn't focus so my buddy had a camera that we have to develop the pictures so I will post them in a few days. After that it was 11:00 pm and we were in front of Hillsborough on the 26 14 so we came in on a 130 degree heading in with winds starting to increase. I fileted the fish back at the dock and found numerous flying fish in his belly with a few squids and also a rare sight of what looked like a head of a barracuda. It had a pointed head with fangs on its jaw line not just a row like Kingsfish or wahoo. I wonder where he was feeeding, or maybe just a lost cuda in the deep. If anyone goes out Saturday night it looks like she's going to ease up a bit from todays blast of 20-25 mph. gusts.

Till next Tide,

Captain Cary Hanna

Hi Cary;

I want to thank you & Jim for sharing last Wednesday evening with me chasing Swordfish. That Donzi is a great boat and you do a nice job handling it. I don't think that I would have wanted to be in any other boat in those 6 ft seas. The first Swordfish made my arms ache after that 45 minute battle and the second swordfish made my whole body ache after that two hour hour battle. When I arrived home, I found my new issue of the March 2004 Sport Fishing Magazine waiting for me. Coincidently, it had an article on page 62 about which fish puts up the best fight?The Marlin, the Swordfish or the Shark? I have landed a 400 lb. Black Marlin, a 300 lb. Tuna along with numerous other gamefish and I have to agree with the consensus of opinion that the Broadbill Swordfish holds its own pound for pound.

Please feel free to use me as a reference for any one that is willing to go after Swordfish.

Tight Lines,

John Keeler