Good lord! This wind.

Last week was had a few good days weather-wise but tournament day was howling when we woke up. Sacha and her team of Nicole and Karen (of Sam and Omie’s fame) got on the boat with their hair streaming behind them and a grim, determined look on their faces. Oh, and a blender.

Well, the day went pretty well. We got shoken up on the way to the north side of Challenger Bank where much of the action has been lately with the tide running to the Southwest. Things started pretty quickly for us with a bite on the shotgun. Karen was quick to the rod, despite the rotation previously agreed with her teammates. The fish jumped and it was clear it was a Blue Marlin. The cooperative fish stayed on top and we were able to back down pretty quickly, despite the rough weather. Karen did a great job keeping up with the boats and before too long a very wet angler and mate had the fish to the leader. Pete did his usual great job and we got the pictures required in the tournaments. The fish was about 200 pounds and 500 points. MAKO was on the board!

We high-fived each other, got the spread back out and continued trolling. The long right rigger came down within 10 minutes with a fish that ran off enough line to make us wonder what kind of marlin we had. Sacha did a great job getting the girt 130 outfit into the chair all on her own and she made short work of the White after that first run. We had good luck, the fish stayed hooked and we didn’t make any mistakes. One White Marlin relaease for 700 points. MAKO in the lead!

Well, I would love to tell you kept up at that pace, but it did not. We had another bite or two that came unstuck and did not get an angler in the chair again.

About 2 pm the blender came out and the Beast Wackers started to flow. Boy, was that ice machine a good idea on the new boat. We ended the day in second place but we entered Level One and Level Two, while the high point boat chose not to do so. What a break and a nice way to start the July tournaments.

Sunday was quiet for us and the fleet. We did not catch anything the second day and ended up in Fourth Place, or so. The weather improved and the blender still worked so it was not a total loss.

Three comments worth making:
1) A huge congratulations to James on the Wound Up. He won the Blast and the World Cup with a nice big fish on Saturday. As James said, “Beware the Lobster Boat”!
2) If you are in the Outer Banks, swing by Sam and Omie’s for breakfast. If Karen is there, she can tell you all about her Blue Marlin. Get the Country Ham. It was great fishing with you, Karen.
3) The yellowfin Tuna fishing is as good as it has been in several years. With fish in the 50 to 60 pound class, it is really great fishing. Northern side of the Banks, plenty of bait and tuna around. Go give it a shot or come with us to catch some.

And girls, see you next year, I hope.

- Capt. Allen DeSilva

Wind and plenty of it.

Look at all that breeze on the map above!  Not a normal June, that is for sure.  The weather kept us tied to the dock more than I would have liked this week.  But we did manage to get out a few days. 

Amy and Steve Fass toughed it out with us for two days.  The first day was quite rough, rainy and quiet.  They were rewarded the next day when the sun came out and the wind laid down for us.  Amy caught a Yellowfin around 60 pounds and Steve caught a nice Wahoo.  Both were taken on live Robins.  Steve got his on a mono leader – that does not happen very often.

We were two for three on Blues for the week.  On Friday we caught a small Blue on the shotgun rod and also had a nice fish – 450 pounds or so – come up on the teaser.  You have got to love those teaser bites!  Mate Peter pitched the fish a Blue Breakfast with two 11/0 hooks to her and she ate.  Everything stayed tight during the fight and we were able to release her as well. 

 Saturday and Sunday was the new release tournament in Bermuda.  We had a trip with Colin Barnes on Sunday.  It was slow for us and the fleet.  We released a White and I think the total catch for the fleet on Sunday was 1 Blue and 2 Whites.  Congratulations to Waste Knot with 3 Blue releases in the tournament.

With some days off, I was able to take care of a few little gremlins in the new boat – loose connections, unbalanced Ethernet networks (whatever that is) and a few bolts needed tightening.  I was also able to take some pictures of the inside of the new boat – we are STILL waiting for a nice day to take some running shots of her.

Each week we are taking the photos of that week and putting them on our Flickr site.  You can get to them by clicking on the photo gallery on this site.  We are trying to use only a few pics in the actual fishing report, there are a lot more in the gallery – go check them out.

Dan Jacobs and his team from Marlin magazine who organize the Bermuda tournaments are installed in the Hamilton Princess for the month of July.  The visiting boats are in and PW’s is starting to look like Pirate’s Cove Marina.  We have tournaments for each of the next three weeks and will keep you advised of how things go. 

The tide continues to run hard into the SW.  That is keeping fish on the North side of both banks.  I can’t wait to see what Bull on the Sea Toy does with this tide – will he give up his spot on the South East corner of Challenger Bank??????  We will see.

Wish us luck!  Talk to you next week.

- Capt. Allen DeSilva

Welcome to the first fishing report of 2009 and the first fishing report from the bridge of the new MAKO.

I know this is a fishing report, but the process of bringing in a new boat, clearing it through customs, getting it inspected, getting it licenced, getting the tackle on, etc. involves a lot of non-fishing time. Anyway, that is my excuse for why it has taken so long to get this report out. It just so happens that the timing of this report coincides with news of MAKO’s first Blue Marlin release…pure coincidence, I assure you.

When I was helping to finish the boat in North Carolina in May, I kept hearing from people back home how dry a May Bermuda was having. At the time I remember thinking…uh oh…bad news for me in June. Well, I was right. It has been an unusually rainy and windy first half of June. If it keeps up, I am going to officially designate June 2009 as “El Mes de Culu Mojado”. That is Spanish for the month that I have been rained upon frequently.

The fishing overall has been pretty good. The yellowfin tuna found Bermuda again after a three or four year absence and they seem to be congregated around the NW of Argus. Interesting, because all the Shearwater (birds) are on the Northern side of Challenger. Everyone I have heard of that stopped and chummed there thinking that the birds do this for a living and must know what is going on, have not had much success. Anchoring over the past week has been generally difficult with the tide running into the wind. Drifting if the breeze is up is also challenging. When the conditions are right, the tuna are there.

Wahoo have started the slide to summer lizards. The last one we caught was about 20 pounds. Last week we had a couple of days where we able to catch a few. This is always the pattern, as summer comes on strong, the Wahoo get small. Still, nice pull and good to eat. Just don’t cut up those new Marlin lures, Mr. Wahoo.

Speaking of marlin, the Whites seem to be showing up. We have not caught any but have had some suspected bites. They are pretty sneaky sometimes and you are never sure what it was that took a swipe at that shotgun rod.

Up until the 18th we have had some hard luck on the Blues. They are being caught in increasing numbers, but all of our bites had come loose before we could catch them. On the 18th, we had pretty good luck with a bite on Louis Point around 9 in the morning. The fish was good sized – call her 400 – and she put on a show greyhounding the same direction as the boat after eating a Evil on the left rigger. Unfortunately, part of the show included the lure flying out of the fish and the water and tracing a 20 foot arc in the sky. A good memory, but no release.

That first fish was also unique in that it was the only fish Jeff Radke did not miss that day. For example, a little later, we had a marlin that was FIRED UP come up on the long left teaser. Pete did a perfect job teasing the fish in closer and the fish actually started after my bridge teaser for a while. When we got that out of the water the fish turned and did a perfect circle back to Radke’s pitch bait. With a pretty aggressive bite, I thought we were off to the races but no. The tension went out of the pitch rod and Radke had another San Cocho to brag about.

You might have to watch it a couple of times to see the fish up the side of the boat actually grab the squid chain teaser. Hopefully we will have lots of interesting footage by the end of the year.

Later on in the afternoon we had another fish come up on the teaser. Again, a great job by Pete. Again Jeff pitched and…..missed. At least this time he let the Marlin eat all of the bait but the head so I guess he is getting better. In the course of the day, we picked up a small tuna and a small wahoo. So we managed to catch and release the first Blue Marlin, feed ourselves with the Tuna and Wahoo and practice our pitch baiting. All in all a very successful day.

Talk to you next Sunday!

— Capt. Allen DeSilva

MAKO finished the crossing late this afternoon. For a new boat, things worked really, really well. A few bugs to work out, but that is expected. We are ready to GO!

The weather for the trip was much better than expected. We left North Carolina in calm conditions with the ocean like glass. We made good time that first day, despite all the fuel weight aboard. We averaged in the low 20 knot range all the way until dark.

View MAKO’s First Crossing in a larger map

We had a quiet night making about 10 knots until dawn. The new Garmin electronics sure performed well. More on that later — Garmin is a new brand to me and relatively new to the sportfishing market but I think they have a really good set of products and I want to do a report on just that in the coming weeks.

Around 6:00 am we sped her up with about 220 miles to go to Blue Cut (the most direct cut in the reef system). Things continued to run well, with an average speed again in the low 20s to conserve fuel. We pulled into the customs dock on Ordinance Island around 4:00.  Not too shabby!

To the crew at Briggs Boat Works, thanks for building such a great boat. We cannot wait to put her through her paces in Bermuda.

Joe, Brian, Peter…thanks.  It was a great trip.

- Capt. Allen DeSilva

It is true!  Mako went overboard on May 15 thanks to all of the guys who really pitched in to get an awful lot of work done in a shiert period of time.  The crew at Sunny’s, James and the guys at Electronics Plus, Bobby and Wayne at Bluewater, Joe Moore and a lot of other people deserve a gigantic thank you.

Coming to the end of finishing a boat consists of trying to get a thousand details remembered and completed.  That is what we will be up to over the next week or two until we bring her over to Bermuda.  We are dying to go fishing!

Thanks to all the friends that have been calling to arrange their trips.  I can tell you that you will enjoy the new ride!

- Capt. Allen DeSilva

You recall that our boat in Bermuda (MAKO) is being built as we speak by Sunny Briggs and the team at Briggs Boat Works.  Well, she is about to splash in the next few days.  Now, I know we are biased, but check her out!

MAKO

Captain Allen is going to Carolina to oversee the frantic details from here until the end.  We are confident that MAKO will be ready to go by June 1.  More pics after his upcoming visit.

Well, Black and Blue Fishing club, MAKO and the De Mako are just about ready to go.
First, some news about the Club – we finally have the legal and banking stuff done.  It was a bother to set it all up so formally, but in these times of economic uncertainty, we think it will pay off to have dotted the “i’s”.  You are reading this so the new website works. Many thanks to Wade at rainmakerwebdesign.com for his help on the site. Like most things, a website is about 7.2 times harder and more time consuming than I would have guessed. The effort to recruit members is going well with three Founding Members already. The captains and members have emailed the proposal to many of their friends and contacts.  We are quietly confident that it will be a success given the interest we are seeing after a week or two.

De Mako – that is the boat that will end up in the Pacific – is sitting in West Palm Beach Florida.  She had some work done to get her ready for Panama (back up generator, watermaker, satellite phone and TV, etc).  We expect that she will be ready to go shortly.  I am attending a convention of sorts this weekend as Allen DeSilva (the Club’s Bermuda captain), Mike Springer (the Club’s Pacific captain) and I descend on South Florida to meet with Jason Doyle and make sure the boat is ready for the trip.

And what a trip it is.  Florida to the Canal is a long, long way.  While Mike has plenty of experience with trips that long, most of the rest of us are more used to the 750 mile run from Bermuda to North Carolina.  I always think of crossings as being like a policeman.  You are going to be bored or scared…and you really hope it works out that you are bored. We expect De Mako will be fishing in Panama by the end of April.  I know several members have expressed an interest in trying to get down there as quickly as they can.  We are looking forward to those first fishing reports!

MAKO, the boat the Club will run in Bermuda, is probably being sanded as we speak.  Let me explain.  MAKO is being built by Sunny Briggs in North Carolina.  The new MAKO is the third boat Sunny built for Allen and me.  If you have ever watched one of these boats constructed, you know that the process is 1/2 sanding, 1/2 everything else.  Sunny, Jeff and the guys are doing a great job pushing to have her done by May 1.  She is going to be pretty!  I can’t wait to see her overboard. We will add pictures of both of the boats when we get back from the upcoming trip.
– Jeff Radke