Day 1 - Sunday

We started the day with a lovely breakfast that was waiting for us at 6am. Marty was also there to tell us more about what to expect during the day. Apparently there had been unfavourable winds for a few days prior to our arrival that had significantly reduced the catch rates. However this switched to favourable on the day of our arrival and people caught Sailfish, Dorada and Marlin.

Pacific Sailfish

This was one of main quarries for the week. The Pacific Sailfish is bigger than it's Atlantic counterpart. They can reach 10 feet in length and 200lb in weight. They are reputed to be the fastest fish in the sea reaching speeds of up to 68 mph. By comparison, a Mako shark (the fastest shark species) can only reach 46 mph and they are considered very fast.

Heading out

We finished breakfast at 6:30 and departed for the marina/port at 6:45. It was only a ride of a few minutes before we arrived at the port. This is a very industrial port with cement works, coal heaps and lots of large cranes and gantries for loading/unloading big ships. Today we would be fishing on "Typhoon".

We were then introduced to the crew who were ready to go and informed us that we would be heading out 30 - 40 miles to find the fish.This would take up to 2 hours at full speed. Thankfully the boat was quite comfortable and had plenty of drinks. There was an inside cabin with a seating area, a small galley and a toilet. Outside, Garry and I would be sitting (and resting) on a bed-like area that was on top of each engine housing, This had a comfortable padded area (like a mattress) and a large padded pillow.

Once we left the harbour walls we realised just how industrialised this port was. There were many large ships at anchor in the bay awaiting either loading or unloading.

We could see rain clouds gathering as we headed out for 2 hours. Thankfully the rain didn't catch us all day - though it may have been refreshing.

Getting the Party Started

We arrived at the fishing grounds for about 9am. The deck hands put out the outriggers which are a very well designed way of spreading out many trolling rods (we were using up to 8), with each being spread out and fished at differing ranges with differing baits and teasers.

Outrigger deployed

This diagram show how outriggers work. You can see that most of the lines go out to the outriggers where they are attached with quick release clips. Most have deadbaits (Ballyhoo) attached but some just tow teasers that cause a disturbance that hopefully get the fish to investigate before they see the baits.

The drag setting is set to very low. When a fish takes the bait a deck hand quickly retrieves the rod, points the tip toward the fish, dis-engages the drag and counts to 4 before setting the drag to its "strike" position. With this the fish sets the hook against the power of the drag and the fight is on. At this stage they pass the rod to one of us so that we can bring in the fish. We are hoping to try our own hook-ups later in the trip but for now we are just observing how they do it properly.

Sailfish are often caught on the fly here but require a good number of them to be following the boat and it's teasers. We decided to leave that for later in the trip when we have a few fish under our belts.

Post-trip edit: we didn't end up fly fishing as there weren't enough Sailfish rising near the boat.

It wasn't very long before we saw Bonito (a small member of the Tuna family) breaking the surface near our baits. Seconds later one was hooked and I retrieved it. These are excellent baits for Marlin so it went straight in the fish cooler. A few minutes later Garry also had a Bonito. The crew then baited up 2 trolled rods with these in the hope that a Marlin may be on the hunt. After 15 minutes or so they abandoned the Marlin hunt (for now).

This is what we came for

We both had decided to take it in turns catching fish while the other person tried to get some good photos and video footage. Therefore the next fish was mine. However I saw immediately that it was a Sailfish breaking the surface so handed the baton to Garry as he had yet to catch a Sailfish in spite of the many other species he has caught over very many sea fishing trips.

This was followed by 2 Sailfish for me and 1 more for Garry.

Garry then hooked a Dorado. We were hoping this would be our lunch but it was lost at the boat so burgers it is! We soon came to appreciate that one of the deck hands was new and was being trained up. He was a bit too keen and ultimately snatched at the Dorado rather than allowing Garry to tire the fish a bit more.