Well, those Wahoo sure did turn on this week! We had a blast. After Hurricane Bill, we fished with John McCadden. John has been fishing all over the world, looking for a Blue Marlin for 14 years. As of last Sunday he was 0 for 15. Understandably, John wanted his Marlin so bad he could taste it. As he read the fishing reports about the seaweed making trolling difficult, he emailed with his concerns about being able to have another crack at his Marlin. Well, I am happy to say that John got one. It was a nice one too – about 650 pounds. Congratulations John! Now that is perseverance. 1 for 16, but I bet you will remember the “1″.

Wednesday we had the McDermott family out. They set the year’s Wahoo record, catching 36 Wahoo for the day. Well done to all of you – were your shoulders sore the next day?

Saturday we had the girls from Teachers Rugby Club out for their annual tournament. We had a pile of women on the boat on a day where it was a mite choppy. Despite some queasy stomachs, the girls managed to catch 9 Wahoo and are looking good for winning the tournament. All of this was achieved with Super Dave in the cockpit. He was a blur down there…downriggers, baits, gaff shots…a real super hero.We averaged 6 to 9 wahoo a day for the week. It is obvious that we have switched out of August mode and, as I said a couple of weeks ago, September fishing is FUN. I can’t wait.

- Capt. Allen DeSilva

You can see them here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/blackandbluefishing/sets/72157622199594812/

Until Hurricane Bill gave us a near miss with big seas and a fair amount of wind we were having fun fishing in that August weather.  The Jaxtimer family, long time friends, came to visit this week and we were able to put together a great few days with Wahoo, Blue Marlin and lots of sun and fun.  Terry Jaxtimer was kind enough to provide all of the pictures for this week’s report – thanks, the pics are great!

As you can see, the Wahoos are here in Bermuda.  You can see lots of them in the chum and on the depthsounder.  They are here and they are going to start biting well soon.

I suspect that Hurricane Bill will turn out to be a bonus for fishing as it rolled the water over enough to drop the water temperature and change over from our August pattern to the Spetember pattern.  The big Tunas are gone, but the schoolies ought to show back up, the Wahoo both on live and dead bait will start to bite.  Check out the article I wrote for Sport Fishing Magazine about some of the unique ways we fish for Wahoo in Bermuda.  Finally, the Marlin will hang in there enough to provide excitement.

Making predictions in our business is normally a bad idea.  I think that I will stop guessing and start fishing.  Next Sunday I will let you know how it turned out.

- Capt. Allen DeSilva

Greetings from the Pacific Northwest. We have some big news that could not wait.

Margo Doyle, the matriarch of Black & Blue Fishing Club, managed to catch and release a 55 pound King (Chinook) Salmon yesterday after a two hour and fifty minute fight.

Margo released the fish as large Kings are almost always females carrying millions of eggs back to the stream of her birth. The fight was long and the excitement at Langara Island Lodge in beautiful British Columbia was high with more than 7 boats watching Margo fight the fish after radio chatter alerted the Lodge boats of the special fight.

At a calculated 55 pounds the fish was the largest caught at the Lodge this season.

View Margo’s 55 Pounder in a larger map

In addition to taking all of the pool participants’ money, Margo has gained a place of pride on the Catch and Release wall of Langara Island Lodge.

Congratulations Margo!!!!!!

Whoa! Too much for one report so we are going to do two this week. Had a pretty good week this week. The Blue Marlin bite is hanging in there and you tend to get a shot or two a day. Friday Colin Barnes got four shots and caught two.

Depending on your personal preference, what might be more exciting is to talk about those big Yellowfin Tunas that I mentioned last week. They are here. While the numbers of fish in the schools are not as big as one might hope, with a little luck and a lot of concentration and patience you can get one or two. The way fishing for these bigger tunas works is you drag baits – beg enough ones to entice Blue Marlin close to the boat and smaller ones further back on the riggers. Way back. Spectra helps a bunch when your baits are so far back there.

You put the boat in 100 – 500 fathoms off the Bank and wait for the school to come up and crash baits. Sunday they were eating these little things we call “redfish”, Saturday they were eating flying squid. Whatever the bait of the day is, when the Tuna drive it to the surface and they are feeding you have to have your baits in the school quickly because they tend not to stay on the surface for long. These Tuna are big for Bermuda – all over 100 pounds. When you get a bite (we got a triple on Thursday) it is a case of hang on and hope for the best! These fish pull hard and fight for a long time. A really rewarding catch for the angler. Gets me all fired up just talking about it.

Our AON trip were the big winners this week catching two of the three big Tuna hooked (one was lost right at the boat – hard luck!). The fish were 120 pounds and 180 pounds. That is a lot of cassarole or sushi or tuna steaks.

Earlier in the week we caught a frisky Blue with Bruce Dilke. What he lacked in size, he compensated for by the jumps. Danny Forchic came fishing for a couple of days with two friends and they both got a Blue Marlin. Congratulations guys! Just as an aside, Danny might have missed his calling. He loves to fish and ski but check out his form with that tag stick…I think the javelin might have been his real calling.

Check out the footage below.

So, for the week a few Blue Marlin, two big Tunas a smattering of Wahoo and Skipjack Tunas. It is August…the seas are flat and full of life. Makes it fun to go out every day wondering what we are going to see today. As I dated this fishing report, I realized that September fast approaches. September is a very interesting month in Bermuda. It is a little cooler, the seas tend to stay flat but the water temperature changes just enough to make it the only month where you can catch every species Bermuda has to offer. Sittting here thinking about what is available in September I come up with the following list:

1. Blue Marlin
2. Wahoo on dead bait
3. the occasional Dolphin
4. Yellowfin Tuna
5. HUGE Tiger Sharks
6. Wahoo on live bait
7. Barracuda
8. Amberjack
9. Little Tunny
10. Skipjack Tuna
11. Blackfin Tuna…you get the idea.

I hate being ashore during September with all that stuff out there to catch. Call and book a trip!

- Capt. Allen DeSilva

All the photos from this week: http://www.flickr.com/photos/blackandbluefishing/sets/72157622056702652/

The weed has retreated.

Go Laura! Nice Wahoo

The weed has gone back to wherever it came from, letting the fleet have a reasonable chance at trolling for Marlin again. The bite is pretty good and seems to be improving slowly. MAKO was able to convince seven of those Blues to eat this week. We released three of them.

Woody's Marlin

We had Guy Harvey and his son and daughter (and a film crew) on board for a couple of days this week. Guy wanted to catch a Tiger Shark and Blue Marlin. I have to say I was getting a little nervous on the Marlin front, but we were able to pull it out at the end and Master Harvey caught a 200 pound Blue. This release was a little unusual as it involved Guy and his daughter jumping in to film the fish! I am sure we will all get to see that footage when Guy’s project is completed.

If you think that is interesting, young Master Harvey also hooked, fought and landed an 800 pound Tiger Shark. Again, at the release, the Harveys were overboard filming. I know he is the expert, but the Marlin filming didn’t make me as nervous and the Tiger Shark filming did.

In other news, AON ran a trip on Thursday and we caught a couple of Wahoo. We went 1 for 3 yesterday and 1 for 2 on Friday.

The tuna are much harder to find this week. They took the Robins (speedos) with them wherever they went. It is a more typical August now…Marlin and Tiger Shark fishing are the main activities, at least until the guys find the next hot spot for chumming the Tuna. I thought things were going to get real interesting when there were a couple of sightings of bigger Tuna, part of the near-annual run of larger Yellowfin Tuna (over 100 pounds) that Bermuda enjoys. They are also hiding now. I sure hope they show up this year.

Until next Sunday…

- Capt. Allen DeSilva

We finally were able to fish Panama when the water conditions were right. It is always tricky when there are weeks between trips to keep track of fishing conditions. Schedules being what they are, you have to find a gap in the work schedules and hope for the best.

Well, we got lucky. Four of us flew down last Wednesday, took the 20 min taxi ride to the boat from the airport, hopped on the boat and ran 60 miles to San Jose Islands. We anchored up for the night there. The islands are essentially empty but provide a great way to break up the run (I think of it as South but it is really mainly East) to the fishing grounds.

We woke up early Thursday and ran another 20 miles to fish down towards Pinas Bay. The first day we went 9 for 12 on Sails and caught a few nice Dolphin. Day Two we worked the Zane Grey Reef for a while, trolling live baits for Marlin while catching Yellowfins and Amberjacks with poppers cast from the bow. Later on in the day we moved offshore for a bunch more Sails, big Dolphin and an estimated 250 pound Blue Marlin. We had a great dinner on De Mako and had a few cocktails as day turned to night and recounted all of the stories from the day.  Not a bad day at all!

Friday (Day 3) was “The One”. It made the trip! Like the previous day, we started off live baiting the reef in hopes of a big Black Marlin and we got her! Captain Mike Springer, who has caught his share of big fish, estimated her to be 700 pounds. On a 50 pound outfit. Stand up! I fought her for close to three hours and we got a great jumping release. I sure was glad to have a trained professional along (Kenny the dentist) to take care of all those teeth I had ground down to nothing during the fight.

We moved offshore, caught a Sail quickly and then caught an estimated 500 pound Blue to complete the De Mako’s first ever slam! I won’t go on and on about the Blue because I was not the angler.

Day Four consisted of a bunch more big Sails and Dolphin and finished with the heart breaking loss (because I was the angler) of a 200lb class Yellowfin after a three hour battle with under-matched spinning tackle (looks like I am going shopping!!).  Overall, an amazing trip!

I am really glad Black and Blue had a great trip in Panama to make all of us anxious to return next year. De Mako is making the trip up to Los Suenos shortly so that the boat is in place to fish the Marlin run off Flamingo in September / October.   By December (hopefully November) the action should be heating up off of Los Suenos. I know we are all anxious to make it back to Costa Rica this winter.

So anxious, in fact, that the days are being booked faster than I would have expected. If you are a member and have not picked your days for this winter, I would suggest that you take a look at the calendar and start picking. If you have been waiting to join, we have a few more months before we close out the “Founding Member” category (they get first cut at scheduling days), so you might want to get in touch and become a member before that ends.

- Jason Doyle

I was checking the footage on the hand held video camera and we got a great clip of Karen Sealock catching her Blue Marlin back in the Blast tournament. I also found the slow motion feature on the video processing software so you are all going to have to put up with my overuse of the feature until the novelty wears off.

I spoke about the weed situation last week. It is no better. It is making trolling very difficult. We have been spending most of our time on the Tuna instead. We have had some really great days. The medium size Tuna are being very cooperative this year. One day last week, in an attempt to combat the weed we put marlin lures on the downriggers to try and keep them below the worst of the weed. We got a little dolphin, but it didn’t work on Mr. Marlin that day.

The weather sure seems to have settled into normal August weather – hot and calm. These calm days are great for kids. We had a trip last week where a couple of kids kept themselves busy all day with the Ocean Robins (Speedos), tuna, barracuda and Mackerel (Little Tunny). It is a nice change to see someone get so excited about catching half a Speedo because she couldn’t reel faster than the barracuda could swim.

We will be out quite a bit this week with no holidays to interrupt us. Let’s hope I have lots of fish stories for Sunday.

- Capt. Allen DeSilva