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