Big Fish At The Bight

This morning it was almost dead calm but cloudy so I decided to go along just for a boat ride with Speedo and Lulu off shore. I wasn’t expecting much as far as fishing and I know very little about the off shore stuff—was I in for a surprise. Lulu drove the boat as Speedo showed me the mechanics of the reels and what to do if we hook up. We were on a zig zag course on the wall. The wall is where the depth drops from 30 feet or so down to 6000 feet in what is called the tongue of the ocean. The ocean was calm and the ride was smooth almost putting me to sleep when suddenly one reel started to scream and then another did the same thing. Speedo had the first rod in hand and I grabbed the other thinking I’ll just haul this thing in pronto —- wrong. Audrey was trying to put this belt thing on me and I told her I don’t need it —- wrong again. With the butt of the rod jammed in my crotch and the fish still running I pleaded for the belt. With my tongue hanging out and the sweat dripping down my face the fight continued. Finally I started to gain some line and after some time I’ll have to admit I was running out of gas but not all the way out. I got the fish in close enough to gaff and Wayne made a perfect hook on the first try. It was a huge wahoo and bigger than Speedo’s because a shark had bitten off about a third of his fish. Within the next hour we hooked five more and at one time had three on at the same time. One would have to say this was pretty hot fishing and they were all really big wahoo. After we boated six which is the limit per boat we decided to have a beer, relax and enjoy the long ride back and it wasn’t even noon yet. When we got to the dock and started to haul the fish to the cleaning table, word got around quick and most were in awe of our catch. Lulu is a very generous person and there were many Bahamians that walked away with large fillets of wahoo for their supper. We gave some to John who is the chef here at Hanks to prepare for us and did his magic as he steamed them and covered them with his special sauce. This was my first experience at this type of fishing other than driving the boat for Hank and I will have to say it was a lot of fun.