Over the long weekend, I had the opportunity to go marlin fishing. We left Dana Point harbor at 3am in the Just Right, a 24 ft SkipJack. Our captain was Mike Hulsey, a local fishaholic and wharf rat! After about three hours, we set our lines out to troll the rest of the way to SC Island. We finally made it within about 3mi. of the island and had a blind strike. Old spike face grabbed a jig, pulled like hell and was gone. We slow trolled up a small mako on a live mackeral a little later. We saw a feeder an hour later tailing around and she sank in our approach to get a live bait on her. No takes...

We snorkeled around the white rock area, and I was absolutely blown away at the feral nature of the island. Beautiful and full of life. I was particulary stoked to set foot on the island. Pretty cool.

We got the lines back out for the 6 hr trek home. We saw one more marlin on the way back, and it spooked and bolted. We came across some boiling tunas, and they disappeared as soon as we arrived too. I was making long casts with a swimbait and couldn't get any takers!

It was a great day for a guy who bass fishes in freshwater. I learned a lot about strategy and marlin angling from Mike. I had a wonderful time with the other guys, laughing all day long. Trolling is definitely different than casting all day.
I felt fortunate to even see some wild marlin, even though we never hooked any. I got to see a great flash and vicious strike on the one blind strike we got off the island.

Apparently no one else did very good either. They had been getting them pretty good in the previous days. The fish were probably pretty hammered!

Lot of fun and a lot of sun!

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BigBait Fishing in the South