There was a faint chill in the air, the kind where you are not sure if fall has officially hit or if your ac was turned down a little too low. The chill was immediately shaken off when I got to the marina and started scooping ice from the machines to load the boat – a 27’ sea hunt – for an offshore trolling trip. Two of us have subscriptions to Hilton’s and we found two good areas to start our search for a rip. If you check out the image below (scaled from 78* to 82*) and the two distinct temperature breaks where #2 and #3 are.
Halfway through the ride over to fad #7 the grass started pulling together and we could see a visible “break” on the surface. The grass was not perfect, but we decided to ride down the visible break to see if it pulled together further down and sweet baby jesus it did! About a mile down from where we first crossed over there was a perfect line of grass pulled together looking as delectable as your grandma’s peanut butter pie at Thanksgiving dinner. We put our five-rod spread in (3 ballyhoo’s, one diver, and one big ass lure) to start trolling along this yellow brick road.
Not even 20 minutes into the troll, the right outrigger pops and the reel starts singing. We keep the boat moving forward and 5 seconds later the shotgun rod starts singing, then pop the left rigger gets smashed and that reel starts singing. Behind the boat three lit-up Mahi-Mahi started doing a very badly choreographed dance as they splashed all over the surface. one by one, we started pulling them into the boat and the biggest one went 25#. After a round of high-fives, we turned the boat back around and headed toward the temperature break and to the spot where we got the first bites.
We stopped at the spur on the way home and made a few Swordfish drops as the current was ripping and could not find any takers. Headed back in after a great calm day and cleaned up some fresh tacos that would make their way to our bellies the next day.