After 5+ years of part time work (AKA "every vacation used and then some") on Third Wave up on the hard Lewisetta Marina in Virginia we finally decided that it was time to begin using the boat even though it is not nearly complete yet. You can go here to review some of the work (about 60%) that we did to refurbish the 1973 42' Chris Craft Commander known as Third Wave.
Toward the end of our time at Lewisetta marina, things were changing rapidly on several fronts and my newly refurbished home in Freeport on Grand Bahama island was finally livable. Thus the decision was made to finally move the boat to Freeport and begin trying to use it to have some fun.
Our very first adventure on this new big boy's toy was our inaugural Wahoo fishing trip which took place in January of 2022. Wahoo like colder water and the waters off of Freeport get into the low 70s during that time of year (as opposed to 85-87 deg F during the summer months). The attendees this year were myself:
- Myself, Dave Tobias now living full time in Freeport Bahamas with my wife Becky
- Kyle Odiorne of Austin TX (my boat partner without whom there would be no Third Wave)
- My brother Bob Tobias of Torrance CA
- Long time friend Eric Sloan, of Austin TX.
Here’s the high level time line and run down of our week long adventure.
- Bob arrived a few days early to help out getting ready for people to arrive.
- On Saturday 01-15 we picked up Eric at the airport and spent what was left of the day provisioning the boat, getting tackle ready, changing engine oil, etc.
- Kyle was delayed by covid 19 and so we were left no choice but to begin the trip without him.
- On Sunday 01-16 we were supposed to go out with the guide but it was rough out so we pushed out 1 day. We had lunch at The Gully Wash Bar and Grill. This is just a mile away up in Smith's Point food and music area. Eric and I pulled the upper helm console apart and unplugged the legacy transducer that I felt was interfering with the two new Garmin transducers. Upon doing that were were able to get both the LVS32 Panoptics Livescope transducer working along with the GT51M traditional / Clear Vu / sideview features working perfectly. That gave us depth readings to 650' reliably and sometimes we got pings back from over 1000' deep. We then took an evening run out the inlet to try our hand at bottom fishing the reef but we had only calamari to fish with, not even whole squid. And no sardines either. So no luck with that. After giving up on that for the evening we ran over to Bell Channel to fuel up the boat for the next day of early morning fishing.
- On Monday 01-17 we went fishing with our hired guide, Captain Jevon Russell. We got skunked for wahoo with the guide (only caught 2 barracuda all day) but he taught us what we needed to know about wahoo fishing and also alerted us that the yellowfin were running 25-30 miles offshore. Nice guy.
We stayed that night in Freeport finishing the evening up with dinner, beers and stogies again at the Gully Wash.
- On Tuesday 01-18 we fished our way over to West End. We got bit several times and our lures and ballyhoo were getting chewed on but we could not set any hooks. But skirts were coming back into the boat missing 4" so we knew the fish were out there. We stayed this night at Old Bahama Bay which is an upscale marina with all the normal amenities including customs check in, fuel, marina slips with power and water and restaurants.
- On Wednesday 01-19 we again tried for wahoo in the 150-400' of water but again could not land any fish. So we decided to head due east 12 miles offshore and try for tuna. That is when our luck began to change. This nice little skipjack tuna hit my bait and we dragged him in to bag the first real eating fish of the trip. There is a lot more meat on these tunas than you might think. The three of us could not eat all of the meat from this catch in 1 night. And if we could have eaten any more fish we would have. Eric made sushi but Bob and I preferred the seared slices. No fishy taste whatsoever. Simply fabulous. We wanted to check out the Blue Marlin Cove marine but the inlet was shallow there and the tide was low by the time we were ready to go eat tuna so we again stayed the night at Old Bahama Bay. (Update: in July of 2022 the Blue Marlin Cove inlet has just been dredged to 10' at Mean Low Water).
- On Thursday 01-20 we got up early and headed northwest of West End to fish up near memory rock. That's the day that Kyle, who was delayed by covid, finally arrived on island. And so in the early afternoon with no fish in the boat we turned around and headed back to West End to go pick him up. We were cruising in at 16 mph high speed trolling when all of a sudden there was a loud pop in the engine bay. Eric and Bob reported that the port engine had "gotten loud" so I pulled the throttles back to idle and went down the ladder to check things out. First thing I heard was a regular ticking sound and I immediately knew something mechanical was wrong. But then when I got to the bottom of the ladder I told Eric it sounded like a plug had fallen out: Plop-plop-plop. So we shut down the port engine and checked the plugs. Sure enough, on the far side of the port engine, one of the AC delco plugs had spit the insulator and center conductor right out of the threaded portion of the plug. The threaded portion was still threaded into the head. So we headed back to West End on just one engine.
While heading back I initially got the boat moving at 6mph. Once comfortable with that, I pushed it up to 8mph and it was just after I made that speed change that Bob's reel began to sing. After a nice fight, Bob landed a nice specimen of what we had been looking for: a ~15 lb wahoo. It was on the small side of average but a very nice fish to be sure. You can really see the zebra stripes in the picture with the gaff. The stripes had faded quite a bit by the time we got the other pics. Also you can see the little green spoon "trout lure" that Bob caught it with. Literally the oldest/cheapest lure on the boat. One lesson here is the heavy cable lures did not hook up. I think at slower speeds the fish can see the cable. We probably need to reserve the heavy cable for high speed wahoo trolling and swap out to all mono or wire leader for lower speed trolling. A big part of this whole experience is learning how to fish for these prized species and class was in session during this trip.
The colors were amazing:
Victorious, we headed back to pick up Kyle. We had asked him to get us some spare spark plugs and so when we got to West End he was waiting for us at the dock. We changed out the bad plug in 10 minutes and the port engine was back running properly again. Thus it was time to carve some meat off of the day's catch. That wahoo fillet was again turned into sushi and seared slices. In my view, the skipjack tuna was a 95 and the wahoo meat was very close in terms of taste, perhaps a 90. Just succulent and no fishy taste.
- On Friday 01-21 Eric had to get his 5 day covid test which was negative. We got some sardines and then did some reef fishing. Bob pulled in this nice amberjack which gave him a good fight.
- On the morning of Saturday 01-22 we got more fuel and talked to Jevon who was working at the marina at that time. He told us to try for wahoo in the AM and then go out and try for yellowfin tuna in the afternoon. Now by this time, the end of the trip was in sight because Bob and Eric had to fly out Sunday around noon. So at this point we were giving Eric a ribbing about not catching any fish, and the usual trash talking that goes along with it. Bob had caught the amberjack and the elusive wahoo, I had caught the first skipjack tuna but Eric had no luck at that point. We spent 2 hours dragging for wahoo and then we decided to head out for yellowfin in time for the afternoon bite. We went out 25+ miles offshore and dragged around for a while. We did get some bites but nothing hooked up. As we continued dragging east with skirted ballyhoo, Eric kept asking to change speed. While this is not something we ever did off of SE Florida, I gave it a try. At one point I had slowed to about 6 mph and let it drag for a couple minutes and then abruptly increased speed to 8.5 mph. Almost immediately thereafter we got a triple hook up. One off the outrigger and two off lines going straight back.
After pulling in two small skipjack tunas similar to the one I had caught earlier...
...Eric set about reeling in the third line which was his rig. That was a 10 minute fight and Eric's arm was just about worn out at the end but he hauled in a nice 35 lob yellowfin tuna. I estimate we pulled about 22 lbs of awesome Ahi tuna meat off that fish. Eric looks like he is holding his first born because this is his first yellowfin.
The insulated fish box finally got a chance to prove its worth and it didn't disappoint. It held ice very nicely even though the top is not yet insulated or even sealed. We were told that the time to fish for yellowfin is really in April when the big ones run. We should expect 80lb fish during that time so we were told by Jevon. A fish that big would definitely give our fish box a run for its money.
In any case, the inaugural Third Wave game fishing trip was a success. The boat ran well for us besides the spark plug issue, there were no navigational mishaps, and we got not only our desired wahoo but also a nice yellowfin and 3 skipjack tunas. But we also learned a good number of things that will only increase our success going forward: use of the outrigger, basic wahoo rigging and tuna rigging, speed changing technique, etc.
No comments:
Post a Comment