Huge Fish!
Wow what a day folks! One of the most memorable days offshore that I have had.
We have spent a lot of time the past 3 years figuring out this daytime swordfish fishery. Lots of trials and errors along the way.
This year has been a banner year for swordfish here in Ocracoke, but we haven’t been able to close the deal on a really big fish. Close, but not quite.
Yesterday we were blessed with a really nice fish.
We set out first thing in the morning with a great group of folks who came here to Ocracoke for the sole purpose of targeting swordfish. Off to the deep we went.
We had our first bite about 15 minutes after we started fishing, and hooked the fish after he played with the bait for 2-3 minutes down there. It wasn’t a huge fish, and we pulled him off about 500′ from the surface.
I ran back up current to my numbers, and we re-set for another drift. About 400′ off of the bottom, my mate told me something wasn’t right, and he thought we were tangled. I told him it looked fine to me, and keep dropping to the bottom. In soon as we hit bottom and pulled the weight out of the mud, the rod went slack. This meant that we either broke the weight off, or a fish had taken our bait and was swimming to the surface with it.
After about 5 minutes of hard cranking we finally caught up to the fish and came tight; hooked up!
At this point we had no idea how big or small this fish was. We eased her up, and after about 45 minutes we had her 150 yards from the boat. We saw the line start to scope up, and watched in amazement as a huge swordfish left from the water right behind the boat. She made two complete jumps before heading back to the deep.
A 3 hour battle then ensued, with neither side really gaining an advantage. The fish would run right up behind the boat, staying just out of harpoon range, and then take off back to the deep.
At the 3.5 hour mark we finally got close enough for the mate to throw the harpoon. He made a great shot, and the fish took off on her final run. She drug the poly ball 500′ down, but eventually it wore her down and we spotted it on top about 200 yards away 20 minutes later. Backed up to it, stuck a flyer in for extra insurance, and then spent the next 15 minutes trying to drag it into the boat; thank goodness for tuna doors!
It was a 103″ fish, that weighed right at 500lbs!
So blessed to be able to do this every day. We have an absolutely incredible and untapped daytime sword fishery right here in our back yards.
If you want to come target these unique fish, give us a call!
