# Halloween Night Fishing Report



## eddiem84 (Nov 3, 2010)

We left Destin Pass around 2 pm on Halloween for an overnight swordfish trip on my buddy's 31' Ocean Pro center console. It was interesting to say the least.

We headed to The Spur and trolled for about a couple hours right before dark, we found a nice rip, but didn't get a bite until right before we were going to pull them in and head to where we wanted to fish for swords. Ended up being a 70 pound yellowfin tuna that we fought until dark, so we decided to move only a few miles into some deeper (1400+ feet) water to swordfish.

Well, we set 3 lines and before we could even get our venison backstraps on the grill the first line goes off a little before 8:00 pm. While my buddy was fighting the fish and we continued cooking dinner, each of our other two lines went off. We quickly released a small swordfish on one and caught a big escolar (oil fish) on the other. After we finished cooking, we were still hooked up with the first bite (we still didn't know what it was), a couple nice mahi came into our lights. So we caught a large cow on a live bait and continued fighting the big fish.

After 3 hours we finally got to the leader but the fish got pissed, and jumped (for the only time) just out of range of our lights. We didn't get a great look, but immediately recognized it was a huge swordie! After 4 and a half hours, my buddy who was fighting it finally gave up, and passed the rod off. We had no stand-up gear, just a gut-bucket, I have no idea how he lasted as long as he did.

Anyway, after another 1 and a half hours (over 6 hours total) of us taking turns fighting the fish, at just after 2:00 am, the hook pulled with the fish only 30 feet or so from grabbing the leader for the 3rd time. We lost our Halloween monster.

We reset baits and quickly released another small swordfish and caught another escolar. Two chicken dolphin and a small wahoo the next morning and we had enough. Back at the dock and a hot lunch by 11:30 am. All in all, a great trip, some meat for the freezer, and one hell of a fish story!

3 mahi mahi, 2 escolar, 1 wahoo, 1 yellowfin tuna, and a couple released swords.


----------



## lastcast (Oct 12, 2007)

Sounds like an exciting trip. To bad about the big one gettin away but, she'll be there next time for ya's. Congrats on the trip and thanks for the post.

Skip


----------



## Chris V (Oct 18, 2007)

Great trip and report. I had a feeling we should have went to the spur Sunday night but put our money on where we had been catching swords all year.......and they were gone.

FYI---Escolar and oilfish are 2 different species in the snake mackeral family. Escolar have smooth skin and are heavier bodied. Oilfish have "spiny" scales and are pretty much inedible.


----------



## eddiem84 (Nov 3, 2010)

Yeah, I have since learned that there is a difference between the two, I just copied and pasted my post from another forum and didn't edit that part out. Ours were Oilfish.

The Spur was definitely happening Sunday night, we had at least one more sword bite, and another 3-4 bites overall.


----------



## user6993 (Feb 15, 2009)

Sounds like the Spur was the place to be.That's the great thing about going real deep,you never know what's coming back up.Thanks for the post.Gene


----------



## MSViking (Oct 11, 2007)

Man exciting and heartbreaking!! Still sounds like a blast!


----------



## HateCheese (Oct 2, 2007)

Too bad about the big sword getting away, but it sounds like an awesome trip all together. Nice post!


----------

