March 14th and 15th Sword Report....

[Canyon Runner]

March 14th fishing with Capt. Jason Neadel on the Big Boy we had the Canyon Runner charter of Dr. Bednar Sr., Jr., and friends out for a night of swordfishing. We set up just south of the 26.00 and on the 49.5 as our drift was taking us offshore. The night proved to be uneventful except for hooking what we thought was a sword that got tangled in our mackerel jig after swatting at a stringer of tinkers! We pulled lines at 2:30 with hopes of swordfish for the next night
March 15th Capt. Jason and I took the father and son duo out for another night of swording aboard the Big Boy. We were greeted with flat calm conditions and made our first drift a little shallower than the night before. Setting up on the 50 line and the 00 we drifted in to the 52 without a hit. We only saw one fish the briefly saw through the lights and chased the tinkers away that were holding under the boat. Making another drift we started at the 49.5 and the 04 we finally got a hit on our tip rod. A sword was whacking at our tip rod and beat up that tinker pretty bad but wouldn’t return to eat it. At midnight we set up our last drift at 49.7 and the 08 and before the second rod was put in the water, our long float started screaming and we were tight. The fish at first came easily and we got past the 300’ mark she started showing us what she had as she pealed off 200’ instantly! Both Doc’s worked the rod like pros and with the fight just reaching over the 1hr mark we had color 50’ down. Dr. Bednar Jr. finished the fish off as I got a hold of the leader and Jay planted the dart! It took a little while to realize what we had but after Jay and I hoisted the fish over the side we had boated a nice pumpkin that conservatively went 165lbs. High 5’s were in order as we straightened up and headed for home at 1:15am. The fish ate a squid down 300’. Congrats are in order for the Bednar’s, especially Sr., who at 77.5 years old bested a very tough fighting fish, his second in his long fishing career!



Capt. Justin Nighan
Canyon Runner Sportfishing