Friday Morning July 13, 2002 heading out for the first day of the Deep Sea Round up.  We had an interesting group of people onboard, a Dallas Cowboy Super bowl football player, a fighter pilot instructor from weapons defense and the owner of the North Star car dealership in SA.  The ride for the first 15 miles was a little bumpy in the 37' Bertram but we almost made Dutra by lines in time (7:00).  I saw a pod of bait working and decided to start fishing just shy of Dutra...well the bait was very spooky and keep going down so we headed to Dutra.  We got a Wahoo on Dutra and the few boats that were there didn't have any action either so we headed to the 300 Fathom Hump.  With 1 hour since the last fish I decided we should go to the Dumping grounds, half way there is were the action started...I was wanting to change things up so I put out a Ballyhoo with a mold craft head in the spread earlier, I decided to bring it in then bam! And fish hit it...I dropped back and he hit the short rigger and I dropped it back, then Whop!  The fish hit the long rigger!  I dropped it back too!  Pow!  He hit the shotgun...with a drop back I hooked up!  The white jumped about 30 times, that scary because they throw hooks like that.  A few minutes later we released the possible fish to win the white marlin tag and release pot.  We stayed on the area for 30 minutes then went on the Northwest corner of the dumping grounds.  Great a Rip, Cool Boards!  Very cool a Wahoo hit.  For about 45 minutes things were slow so bring in the lures and out with Ballyhoo working the same stretch of water back and forth (about 2 miles).  We saw several boats working the rip and didn't see any hook ups so I decided we needed a change...come up to a board and drift for a few minutes...well I don't know if that worked or if the fish just turned on but we stayed in fish for the next couple of hours, Wahoo and Mahi Mahi.  We had a big fish that ended up 3rd in the Mahi Mahi division, but that is good for about zero, a fun fight and time for the customers though.  We had to leave them biting to make weigh in so in with the lines, up with the riggers and push on the throttles.  Coming into weigh in and making my turn into the harbor ought O!  Starboard engine stuck in gear, we limped around to weigh in and called the mechanics that gave us the news, no fishing for the second day.  The brand new gears were bad and we had to ship them to Houston so we can have the boat ready for Poco Bueno!  Will our fish hold up was the question in between wiping the grease off our hands!  Heck Yeah, The Print for first place White Marlin should be hanging at the North Star dodge dealership in SA right about now!

 

Fool'em or Feed'em,

 

Capt. Scott McCune