2/3 Sunday night nov 20-- Report with pics

[swordfish123]

First time swording since last spring break. Got my new rods and reels ready for action along with some carefully rigged squid.

As a side note, we saw a Whale shark on the way down to miami which was pretty awesome. We pulled up right next to him and he just kinda chilled next to the boat, didnt get any good pics though. It was at least 25 ft long, probably longer.






So we get out there and set up at the 25.58 and 49.3 at about 6:00. 6:15 the tip rod gets slammed, fish on. I get harnessed up and fight the fish. My rods were perfect for swords! I had about 16lbs on him the whole time and got him to the boat in about 15 minutes and he was still green. I put on some gloves and pulled him in by the sword for pics/measuring.



Excuse the expression on my face...I think it was at the point when I realised pulling that thing in the boat wasnts the best idea, oh well. In the chaos I dont think we got an accurate measure on him, but he was released unharmed still kickin hard.

So baits are back out and an hour later the middle jug starts actin funny. A couple clicks go out so I get tight on him and he takes off. My bud gets in the harness to fight his first billfish. This guy fought a lot harder but we put the brakes on him....look at the action on these rods!!



So this fish is clearly bigger but hard to measure with our tall gunnels. We need to come up with a better system. Released him anyway, I only want to take home a solid fish. He posed next to the hydraglow nicely though..



Another release. So we're 2/2. We reset back at the 49 and get the baits out. I'd say about 15 minutes later the far balloon starts screaming. Fish dumps about 250 yards by the time we get my dad in the harness. Tip rod goes off. Now its a double, dad's fish still peeling line while we see the green electralume way out under the surface. I winch in what turns out to be a small shark. Dad's fish turns and races towards the boat, stays tight though, then he goes deep, then he goes out, back toward boat and off. Bummer...always lose the big ones but thats fishing.

any ID on this shark? i know the pic sucks..



A great night of action, Tek- thanks for the disco! the 2nd fish hit it. i sitll owe you $5!

[FinalPoint]

Great job! Definitely two legal fish, but nice to see them released.

[hannaman]

Great sportsmanship out there. You'll get the big one next time, you deserve it.
Nice boat by the way. I wish I was fishing on that.

[swordfish123]

thanks Cary, our boat has its pluses and minuses. minuses being its close to impossible to fly a kite due to the pilothouse and lack of outriggers, limited rod holders, swim platform etc.

Pluses being you can cook a hotdog while fishing

[Capt Ted]

we had a simlar nice with 2 cuban night sharks and 2 swordfish around 40 pounds or so. releaseed everything and headed in a 11:30.

gotta love it!

[GENERALturtle.]

Good job on the catches and releases!

[JahMussa]

Keep the $5... seeing that look on your face is priceless!

Congrats and I'm glad you caught a few!!!!

Those are some beautiful rods you built!

Enjoy and maybe next time I'll be able to come fish with you guys.... I like hotdogs and AC.

-Tek

[RiskTaker]

Steve:

Way to go swordfishing. Looks like you even got one of those pesky sharks too. It looks like a Night shark, very typical to that depth range and time of fishing. Those you must release since they are a protected species.

Great job! It looks like you had some keeper fish but it is never a problem if you release them to grow on you.

You're making it look like fishing 123.

Did you catch those fish on your personalized custom rods?

P.S. - For a convenient quick reference for fish size. Wrap a piece of white duct tape around your gaff to indicate 47" or your minimum keeper size from the inside of the hook. That way you can approximately size up your fish while it is in the water.

[swordfish123]

RiskTaker, that sounds like a good idea, i'll have to do that next time down.

Yeah i caught the fish on the rods i built, couldnt have been more happy with them! I still have one more to build so I'll be posting up another article when I get a chance with some more step by step pictures of the building process. Finals comin up....ugh

[Nick C]

Originally Posted by JahMussa

Keep the $5... seeing that look on your face is priceless!


-Tek

How about that Hydro Glow !!!

Nice fish!!! Even better release... it's good to see people releasing some of these legal fish!

[robalo]

Very well done! Please don`t do that again? Of all the fish in the sea, the Swordfish is the most dangerous one you will encounter. They can come to to life and start swinging that sharp bill and slice you good. Quite a number of Gloucester fishermen have been killed by Swordfish. That includes sinking the dory they were fishing from. Be wary of wiring one headfirst twoard the transom because they have been known to jump in the boat. It looks like the Sunshine State has another Swordfish addict. Someone was boasting to me about his 300gram squid the other day.Lord, did I ever get a good laugh out of that one.

[Iron-Em]

Hey, what kind of rods are those?
And if possible can you tell me where they were made, what company and so on.


We dont have bentbutts yet but....we have 8 biscayne custom rods....which have the same kind of desingn of leather on the grips..il try to post a pic of the fish we got friday night...and maybe the rods also.

[Iron-Em]

O i see that you said the rods YOU built....well..just wondering if you did it yourself or you had them made.

Thanks ahead of time.

[swordfish123]

Iron-em,

I actually got the leather from Biscayne Rod, they custom made the 12'' length to fit my blank, but I had to do quite a bit more work to get the tapers right on the ends. The bent butts are awesome, i love them out of the harness and they fit just fine in a standard rod holder. If you want them you could easily buy them seperate and sell the others on Ebay, or keep the straight butts for different fishing situations.

and Robalo...you are right, dumb move, but we didnt want to gaff him if he wasnt legal so it was kind of a cluster if you know what i mean

[Iron-Em]

Biscayne rods all the way man!

We have the 4 graphite. 7' rods with 30TW internationals....and then planning on getting 3 more 80TW and bentbutts on the others.....give me a few and il put some pics up