Latest Catch Reports 2008

David Sellers had a hard job getting this 50lb sailfish to the boat since the hook although initially in the mouth came out and lodged in the tail!

Hence the fish came to the boat backwards and had to be towed alongside for several minutes until it revived and swam away

Jason James and Michael King enjoyed a fantastic mornings sport today. First up after 20 minutes was a lovely 275 lb blue marlin tag & release for Jason after a 35 minute fight.

Taking a breather Jason let greenhorn Michael fight the next fish - his first billfish - a 50lb sailfish tag & release.

After that we missed another sailfish and then saw some large yellowfin tunas feeding. They did not seem to want to come into the spread so I dropped the shotgun way way back and eventually a tuna exploded on it. Jason fought this one for about an hour before we boated it - it later weighed in at 134 lb....

Vet students Preston, Eric & Lee (multi times repeat clients) picked the right morning to go down th edge today, they caught nine blackfin tunas, four barracudas and Preston released this fine 50lb sailfish after a short fight on 30lb test.

The large amounts of blackfin tunas are sure to draw in some wahoo and maybe even marlin if they stay around.....

We tagged and released our largest blue marlin so far this year today for Marc-Andre Doyon. This fish I estimated at 450lbs. It was a text book marlin - it did a spectacular strike on the shortest line and took over an hour to subdue on 50lb test after leaping out many times, charging the boat and generally trying to kill us! We had it on the leader after 40 minutes but even 2 people pulling could not get it up to the surface and we had to let go again. After an hour we managed to tag it and then had to dump the leader yet again as it charged off.

Finally we got it on the leader for the 3rd time and 3 of us managed to control it long enough to remove the hook - when we let go it rolled over then charged off again!

The Fray family from Switzerland went out for a half day fishing trip today on a windy morning where the fish were not biting in the usual places so we took a diversion up by Glovers island and caught (and released) these 2 beautiful African Pompano.

We rarely catch these fish so to catch 2 in a morning was very unusual.

Just for comparison below are the catch results for first 3 months 2007 with 2008

.....................................2007...............2008

Yellowfin. ...................7......................4

Blue Marlin..................5......................7

White Marlin ...............6......................6

Sailfish.......................21....................10

Dorado......................62.....................13

Its not been easy - a poor year for dorado alhough last year was exceptionally good - hopefully the year will improve later on.

Andrew Lynch caught this 26lb dorado today on his first offshore fishing trip. We did not have a lot of action since follwing the birds only led us to hundreeds of porpoises and dolphins!

Coming back up from there we caught the dorado and also a small barracuda.

Mahi mahi steaks on the menu tonight!

Bernd Leister and friends from the Aida cruise ship caught this 110lb (50kg) yellowfin tuna today on a half day trip and also lost another big fish earlier when the hook pulled out.

In addition we saw dolphins and also raised a large blue marlin which decided not to eat our bait for some reason......

Neil Morris (repeat customer since way back when!) exceeded his expectations from last year (2 blue marlin - see catch reports 2007) today when he caught 2 blue marlin (80lb and 30lb) plus a nice 60lb sailfish.

Today was a day of days - we saw loads of sailfish feeding under birds but for the most pat they would not look at the baits. In between we saw big tunas coming up and in addition sei whales feeding around hoards of blackfin tunas - spectacular stuff.

The first blue (we thought it was a white at first but not conclusive) took a short line just after we saw a whale blow and then boil close to the boat. That fish gave a very good fight considering its small size.

After that we worked around the birds and eventually enticed a sail to eat the shotgun bait.

Then we did a detour to watch the whales feeding then came back east and fished several groups of birds without a bite before the last group yiedled 5 strikes - 1 on the te4aser and 4 lines - all but one dropped off - the last one was tagged estimated a 30lb blue marlin!

So Neil finished the day a happy man with 3 more billfish tags to his name.

Eric Brown of SGU went out (again) today and caught several barracudas, released a sailfish and lost a wahoo which shook the hook just a few feet from the boat.

Big swells were pounding the shoreline but offshore the seas were calm to moderate...

Repeat client Arthur Olding plus friends Dave and John tried a half day this morning - Dave & John had never been big game fishing before. Well... John ended up tagging and releasing the 90lb blue marlin while Arthur and Dave both caught dorado. We also lost another dorado and later a sailfish managed to spit the hook..

See who needs expertise when beginners luck is even better!

Tony Hamlett tagged this feisty 45lb sailfish today - his first billfish.

The bite was slow with only 2 fish raised but at least we got one in the choppy conditions.

SGU students andrew, remi, sean, dave, charlie & joe enjoyed 6 hours fishing today where the top catch was Remi's 110 lb yellowfin tuna. We also had a brief hook up on a sailfish and missed another one

Plenty of tuna steaks were taken home for the barbie and the freezer!

Repeat customer Robert Hibbert was absolutely delighted to catch this 300lb blue marlin today - it gave an impressive fisght for 20 minutes on 80lb class gear.

We also missed 2 finicky dorado strikes...

Derek De Sa and family caught this lovely 10lb rainbow runner today and had blackfin tuna and barracuda action as well.

Sister Louise went from se sick melancholy to angler's delight as soon as she boated the first fish!

Andy Windmill's luck continued with his 3rd white marlin of this years fishing and then ran out when he spent 3 hours attached to a large blue marlin before breaking the 50lb line just as the sun sank beneath the waves....

Preston's group of SGU students caught this 70lb white marlin today next to a large group of porpoises.

Andy Windmill caught his first billfish today - a 50lb white marlin and then confirmed it by tagging another 45lb one!

He also caught a dorado and lost another fish after 10 minutes fight.

Tomas Birriel from SGU tagged this 50lb white marlin today and we lost another one

Moor sailfish today - this 55lb one was tagged for David moor this afternoon - this morning we caught 2 dorado for Irvin Gustaffson's group off the celebrity cruise ship

Ocean Village 2 cruise ship passengers had Jennifer's peace corps group caught only 1 fish today this lovely 30lb dorado. Plenty more were around but were playing hard to get...

Max Huntingford caught this 127lb yellowfin tuna yesterday and lost 2 blue marlin. Today he released a sailfish on the first day of the spice island billfish tournament

Laurence Ayliffe tagged this 50lb sailfish today - his first catch with us after 2 blank trips in the past - thanks for your confidence in us - glad it paid off this time around!

Simon Avery tagged this 100lb blue marlin on a day where we also missed 2 sailfish bites

Rod Thirkill tagged this 45lb sailfish and lost another today.