Our trip to the EDGE was set for West Atlantis, 95-NM Southeast from Montauk. At quarter to 2AM Sunday, morning Alfred, John and Bob arrived and with my first mate/son Cody we left Montauk. Headed southeast @ 25-knots with dual radar running and flat calm seas. At 6AM we were 8-NM short of the Southwest corner of W.A.
We dropped in and set up our hungry spread, 3-Rasata Squid bars on the corner & center riggers, 6-Lollypop Spreader bars on the transom flats and long outriggers, and 2-Black Bart chuggers on the short outriggers. By 7:30AM we had raised two White Marlins but never came tight.
Cody on the watch:
We trolled east to the pocket and worked the east wall for a couple of hours, then turned west and trolled west and north till noon. With the seas so flat, I even ran my home made YFT greenstick bird without any baits on it as a chase teaser and put my spread out further than I usually run it trying to get a bite.
While trolling I came aross this alloy boat working the area, I tried like hell to raise the guy on the radio and tell him about AAB but instead all I fgot was a couple of photos. I am not sure what hull it is, can anyone tell???
Lots of giant, I mean giant turtles around, must have seen a dozen or more throught the day.
We were 16NM from the pocket when in a conversation with Jeff, the Captain of the "CRACK OAR" a 47-Ocean out of Westerly R.I. Jeff said he had a large pod of whales and bait but no bites yet. We had zip so we pulled and ran the 16-NM to the pocket where we came in and jigged in the deep bait with no takers. We setup the spread again and worked the same area that we had been in this morning.
"CRACK OAR" had run from Hydrographers and worked his way West down the 100-fathom line past Veatches, East Atlantis and ended up with a couple of white marlins during saturday and a single BigEye on the chunk saturday overnight at West Atlantis. On sunday just after we arrived from his call, Jeff grabbed three Albies 30-50lbs then he took off at 2PM on sunday after he called us in.
We had no knockdowns till 6PM when the center rigger popped with a bird and Green Machine, but never came tight. I jumped to the transom and started jigging the line, I got to hits figuring it was small skippies of something. I kept jigging and then watched a marlin sword come up and slash at the lure. I kept jigging then it happened, he got all pissed off and smashed the lure hard, so hard the line dug in and broke my skin but not before I had set the hook on him.
Cody jumped to the rod and started the battle. It was short and sweet when the little Whiite Marlin came to my hand whee I removed the hook, we took some pictures and video of it, measured it at 42" fork of tail to lower jaw. Maybe 30lbs, a cute little White for both Cody and the XIAO MU JI.
We worked whales, pods of porpise and nothing. 9PM we pulled the lines and had to make a choice.
On my Garmin real time weather XM satellite unit showed a big storm coming. It soon was upon us and a huge light show was taking place to the west of us. This storm concerned me because of the huge amount of lightning that the unit showed. I watched the track and made the call to run the 36NM to the west to sit on the edge of the Tails canyon and swordfish for the night. As we ran the storm track changed to the east and befor long the storm became a 400NM long x 80NM wide lightning storm that was moving towards us at 25-MPH. That ment 8-10 hours of lightning to sit through if it came east over us at the Tails.
The vertical lightning strikes were so large around that they must have been 100-yards across, then as they made contact with the ocean, the sky crackeled with spider bolts of lightning in 30-miles in each direction. SCARY!
10NM from the Tails, I had had enough and thougt that I was at the point to turn and try to outrun the storm. As I headed Northeast, the satellite unit told me that I should head to Martha Vineyard to safe haven where we would sit it out till morning. I ran 25NM towards the Vineyard and then thought I could cut infront of the storm and make it to either B.I. or Montauk. Running in seas that were still calm, I made it 70NM at 24-25knots then the wind and seas began to build I was still able to run 20-22knots with quartering/following seas. THe light show was to my port and coming on fast, but the speed of the XIAO MU JI and dual radar got us to port before it did at midnight.
I made the call to run because it was a lightning storm, if it was just heavy rain I would have sat it out, I know it was a wise call to run. I was exhusted, said good by to the boys and Cody and I hit the sack. At around 2AM or so all hell broke loose. Lightning, and rain so heavy that I thought a fire truck had their hoses pointed at the boat. I awoke to high winds and rough seas when we went out to get Nancy some sea bass for dinner. Got a couple of fish and headed home.
Video and marlin photos to come from Cody soon...
Slow canyon fishing right now, All in all it was pretty dead from all the boat reports from the Tails to Hydros, but the little White Marlin was cool, just not eatible! Marty & Cody
White Marlin In West Atlantis
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