 Today was a good trip. Samantha, who is a first year Law student attending Nova University here in Ft. Lauderdale treated her boyfriend Joshua to a half day Ft. Lauderdale Fishing charter aboard Marlin My Darlin for his birthday. Joshua is an avid fisherman and has caught many different species. His list was missing a Mahi-Mahi, which he had never had an opportunity to land. We began the day trolling, which is an excellent way to locate Mahi-Mahi. We had good hopes for success as Mahi have been here for quite sometime now with the strong onshore winds and good current. But today was different. The current slowed and then stopped within a half hour of the beginning of our charter, and those strong onshore winds that have made it rough for what seemed like forever finally gave us a break during the night But the calm conditions and no current are far from ideal conditions. We managed a few quick Kingfish which were fun. Joshua wanted to know everything we were doing and why. He was really into fishing. The Kings were welcome but the top of his wish list was Mahi-Mahi. With this in mind we opted for some live bait as the lack of current and calm conditions can cause these fish to be very picky, and maybe a Sailfish would show up and that would be O.K. too, but the wish was for a Mahi. We slid a Ballyhoo out with the livies and began our search. We found a faint current edge out in 350 feet, set up camp and stayed put as it was by far the best looking area of the morning. The first Mahi in the picture came into the spread and ran a live bait all around the place but wouldn’t eat it. Picky for sure. We pulled the idle Ballyhoo up into the area, got the Mahi to switch off the livie to the Ballyhoo, and Joshua hooked his first Mahi. 1st mate Chris pitched a fresh chunk of cut Bonito into the area on a spinner and the second fish in the picture ate immediately. We were lucky today, no other Mahi by anyone else in the fleet. A single chance at the pair of the targeted fish to go with the Kings in the box. A fun Ft. Lauderdale Fishing charter with Samantha and Joshua, and Mahi- Mahi off the bucket list, but now certainly on the wish list for next time. |
