It started on another thread on this very forum, where Double Haul said he would one day invite me on his boat for a weekend of teasing the sailfishes...
And it happened!
First and foremost, Thank you Double Haul that was a great weekend!
And now I can tell to my daughter the story of how I was bitten on the thumb by a sailfish.
So it started on an early Saturday, when I left my beloved ones sleeping to meet DH at his home so we could drive to Dundee and launch the boat.
During the trip like the evening before when I had left my fishing gears at his place DH explained with patience, how to fish for Sails...
Then the tractor, and the boat in the water, nice calm weather and off we go in the horizon.
We spotted many school of Tunas and Mackerel but DH said they were only bait and of no interest for us at the moment...
This in itself was a lesson to me...
What a bit school of hungry fish and we don't even try to catch a few?
But I was to understand why, once the first sail was caught by DH...
So once arrived to to the mark we start to deploy the teasers and lure and skipping garfish.
Once again DH explained to me how important it is to wait 10 seconds before trying to hook a sail that has just slurped your gar...
Ha you'd think that after hearing it 3 times I would have it burned in my brain... Well more on this one latter.
So we start trolling and he told me to be very attentive and to really keep my eyes on the bait behind the boat.
So that what I did, thinking that any way it would be a very long time before a fish came up to eat our bait.
But before I knew it, I hear DH scream THERE IS A SAIL DO YOU SEE IT!?!?!?!
And me: where?
You'd think that a fish of this size a few meters of us I should have spotted it, as after all I was very attentively watching the baits...
Well to be honest, I did not see it till it was pointed to me, with his bill just on the side of the bait on our left...
Then I see DH, lowering the rod, counting to ten, like he had told me.
Close the bail harm on his reel and an explosion in the water with a fish that just seemed to be more and more in the distance which each jump...
So has I was being instructed I reeled in the other rod, got the teaser back in the boat, and then had to "drive" the boat.
Certainly an easy manoeuvre for most of you...
But I had never ever tried to steer a boat before!
To give you an idea when he told me : Ok go forward, I said, yes, how do I do that?
And I was starting to think: If he misses this fish because of my fault, maybe he's gonna throw me overboard...
So trying to keep my cool and to look as calm as I could I did just what he asked just saying now and then: yes, and how I do that?
Poor DH, he must have hated me then...
But he got his fish along the boat and he said ho it's only a little one...
But to me that was one of the best catch I had ever seen.
So he asked me to tag it, another first for me.
Then to revive it, another first to me.
(Do you start to understand how clueless of a deckie I can be?).
And that while I was reviving it that the beast got a go at my thumb.
(What a great story to tell the little one!!!)
And then I was like in shock: I had just seen my first Sail fish, seen it get caught, touched it, and I had also tried not to overturn a boat while the captain had his back to me and I had the steering wheel in my hand.
(Not sure if he realised in which danger he put himself there
)So off we start again and one fish came and eat my bait, without me seeing anything...
So when I realised that the line was quietly peeling of I grabbed the rod, and started to count to ten and arrived to ten, in what DH recon must have been a maximum of 3 seconds...
So when I closed the bail on the reel....
The fish just nicely swam away...
HA!
Then another one slurped the bait but lest go of it before ten. (See I was making progress!)
Then another one got the bait, I counted to ten and looked at DH for approval, and he said not just right now, wait... Wait ... Now! And bang I was on! The fish did a few jump, started a nice run, and another jump then a vertical vrille and was gone...
But in the short time that this happened... Ha that was good!
Ten we trolled some more for not that much action appart being cut of by some macks.
Then a bit of reef fishing and some nice tricky snappers.
Then we tried for Jewfish, and I got a baby one, which I returned to the water.
Then of to set up camp at Point Jenny if I remember well.
Where we had our dinner where I was able to eat all the junk food I wanted!
Then a well deserved sleep.
And at around 4 in the morning Bang/splash and big noise that wake me up and there I thought that DH had fallen in the water! Turn out that it was a mullet that for some unknown raison had jumped and hit the bait board...
Spend a few minutes at looking at the stars, the luminecences in the water and thinking that throwing a popper around might be fun, but fall back to sleep.
Then breaky and of we go.
The plan was to chase a few macks or tuna on the way to the sailfish grounds.
No success on the tuna or mack so we continued to try for some sails, but could not raised one.
But a nice little mack took a lure at the back and I got him in the esky.
So reef fishing again, for some tricky snapper, a parrot fish a nice cod and a little chinaman caught by DH, as I had never seen any that was nice to see one in the flesh.
Then back to the launching ground, got some cold soft drinks from the shop and on the way home.
And this is was memories are maid of.
A great weekend full of first.
And yes this sailfish fishing thing... That is a very exciting thing...
Thanks again Double Haul, I just hope that the mountain of my total inexperience was not too much for you, I really had a good time.
And here are a few pics of DH reeling a fish and then the fish, they are not very good pics, but remember that I was trying to drive a boat for the first time at the same time and then my little mack.
Have a good day,
Pecheur
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