# Marlin and Beer Can 5/16



## alexa041 (Jun 27, 2008)

Left out of Dauphin Island at about 12:00 Friday night heading to the Marlin on a 31 Jupiter and were greeted with a little bit of a bumpy ride but not uncomfortable. Got to the rig at about 3:00 and began chunking and live baiting with some mullet we caught in the cast net Friday afternoon. Not much action as we only caught one blackfin on the mullet and a couple of sharks chunking. We did have a really big bite on a mullet at about 5:00 but pulled the hook after about 30 seconds of taking line straight down, oh well. At first light we started pulling a spread of naked ballyhoo, but with very little tuna on the surface we didn't catch any yellowfin. There were a lot of other boats there and wesaw a few fighting fish, but it didn't seem like anybody was wearingem out. At about 6:00 we did catch a nice little sailfish on a naked ballyhoo for our first billfish of the year, it is always good to get that out of the way on the first trip. At about 7:15 we started trolling toward the beer can and about a mile away we had a 250ish blue crash the left rigger blue/white islanderand it was on. It was a great bite that almost everyone saw and then it cut across the wake with half of its back out of the water.We were using all30 and unfortunatly when it got a lot of line out after a couple of minuteswe didn't back off the drag enough and broke it off. That was an extremely tough lesson to learn and I am still beating myself up about it. After that experience I have definately decided that I am a bigger fan of using 50. After that we continued trolling toward the Beer Can and there seemed to be a lot of life but not much tuna action. We put the dink baits on light leader back out but didn't get any tuna bites. We fished around the rig for a little bit and trolled off to the NE a little bit and caught a couple of good Dolphin with the biggest being about 30-35. We fished around the area where we caught the dolphin but got no more bites so we started trolling back toward the Beer Can. When we got back to the rig we immediately caught the smallest wahoo I have ever seen at about 5 pounds, but in the box he went. By this time it is about 1:00 and we started trolling off to the NW with a mixed spread of small lures and ballyhoo. We put another decent dolphin in the boat and then hooked another sailfish on a standard size moldcraft widerange. The standard size widerange and super chugger are by far my two favorite lures to pull, they catch everything. While we were fighting the sailfish, we had left the center rigger blue/white islander jr. with a ballyhoo behind a birdout. After a couple of minutes I decided it was time to clear the fly line and when I got it about 50 feet behind the boat it was crashed by another sailfish and now we have a double. The one that I had hooked jumped one time and I put the heat on and got it to the boat in maybe a minute and as soon as my buddy grabbed the leader the hook pulled for a nice palm beach release. This was definately the best thing to happen since we still had the other one getting ever closer to the boat. After a couple more minutes we got the other one to the boat and drug it in for a couple of quick pictures and sent it on its way for our third sailfish release of the day. After that we decided to put the dink baits back out and fish around the area looking for more sailfish. We caught a big cow dolphin in the high twenties and decided to call it a day. We ended the day with a couple of blackfin, one weehoo, four nice dolphin,andthree released sailfish. What a great start to the year. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come for the summer. On the way in we crossed a beautiful color change right at the hundred fathom line about 55 miles south of Dauphin Island, but with nothing left to prove we decided to run on and celebrate on the way in:letsdrink. All in all it was a great trip, but I still hate losing the blue, especially since it was something that we could control. Our first problem started before we ever left the dock when we couldn't find a scale to pull drags and we just guesstimated it :doh; won't do that again. Photos to come later as I didn't take any pictures and will need to get them from friends and then figure out how to post them. 

Before anyone asks, I am the white trash guy in the Flora Bama tank top.










Sail giving me a hard time.










Happy angler with his first atlantic sail.










Nice Dolphin.










World's smallest wahoo.










Happy crew with third sail of the day.










Third sail pre-release.


----------



## Joey_d133 (Feb 16, 2009)

Yall were working those sailfish! Cant wait to see some pictures! :clap


----------



## Tkiller (Jan 15, 2009)

:takephoto:takephoto


----------



## Live4Fish (May 12, 2009)

:clap :takephoto


----------



## collinr (Mar 2, 2009)

Here are some pics of one of the sails and a couple dauphin. How do I post picswithouthaving them as attachments?


----------



## Captain Woody Woods (Oct 2, 2007)

3 for 3 on sails and 3 for 4 on bills all day? hell of a day right there


----------



## Joey_d133 (Feb 16, 2009)

Sweet pictures man. Nice fish! :clap


----------



## Chris V (Oct 18, 2007)

Great job. Thats a lot of sails for the gulf in one day.


----------



## dpewitt (Oct 26, 2007)

Damn nice post. Congrats.


----------



## cliff k (Oct 1, 2007)

wow. incredible way to start the year. i can only hope that my year starts like that in 3 weeks.


----------



## [email protected] (Mar 20, 2008)

Great report and pics...Awesome job on the sails!


----------



## Cast-N-Call (Apr 21, 2009)

Were you using J hooks or circle hooks on those ballyhoo? Just curious.


----------



## alexa041 (Jun 27, 2008)

After much discusion on whether to use circle or j hooks we decided to go with the j hooks as our confidence and experience is much higher with them.


----------



## MSViking (Oct 11, 2007)

Outstanding!! My hat goes off to you guys! I second the Moldcraft wide range and chugger. It has gotten to where I only pull the Moldcrafts up close and Islander/ballyhoo or naked ballyhoo further back. Great simple, easy running lures.

MScontender


----------



## alexa041 (Jun 27, 2008)

bump for pictures added


----------



## Reel Rowdy (Oct 4, 2007)

Neil, was it a little smoother ride out than last weekend?:banghead



Nice trip!


----------



## andyyar (Nov 4, 2007)

Hell of a trip guys. That qualifies as a sailfish beatdown in my book.

That would have beena stud wahoo for my boat. My girlfriend actually won some money with that fish's little sister in a tourney last year. 

I lost a telephone pole of a wahoo two seasons back right at the boat, and ever since then we have been haunted by the snakes.

Great report.


----------



## BlueH20Fisher (Mar 20, 2008)

That's awesome!! We didn't get many bites at all on the troll, and yeah the moldcrafts always have their spot in the spread.


----------



## superman (Feb 28, 2008)

YALL HAD A WORKOUT... NICEVERY NICE:usaflag


----------



## collinr (Mar 2, 2009)

yeh john the weather was great. Saw yal caught some nice snapper we need to catch up and go again sometime.


----------

