Met up with a few of the guys on Saturday and launched into FLAT CALM water at Dania Beach here in sunny South Florida. The fishing usually sucks when the water is that nice, but it was the maiden voyage in my new Outback (technically my Dad's but don't remind him
) so I was game for a nice cruise anyway. Live goggle-eye bait was put out and I vertical jigged at 200', 250' then later in 340' and nothing was happening. I don't have a fish finder on this yak yet so I had to bug my friends for depth readings. So I was sitting there, Facebooking in 400 ft depth, and out of the corner of my eye I spy a Mahi investigating my bait. I turned off the clicker, let the line freespool, and held my breath... 1 nibble, 1 run, count to three and lock drag Fish on! After an acrobatic show I gaffed him and gave thanks to the fish gods.
I saw other schoolies with him, but by the time I re-rigged I was too late.
After that I got a small blackfin tuna, which I kept, thinking that was it for the day. It was about this time I looked in the hull for a snack and found 4 inches of water inside! Yep I had a slow leak on the brand new yak! One of my friends helped me out by loaning me his bilge-pump which I put to good use. We started heading in slowly, jigging along the way, close to noon and we might have been in 250' when I got hit on jig. Big bend in the rod, but another team member had just gotten a similar hit from a donkey of a Bonito so I expected the same. I had quite a nice fight and then as it got closer I realized it was a BFT of decent size. I was elated! I sunk the gaff in him, and smiled at a full fish bag.
I pumped out the yak one more time and made a beeline for shore.
PS: we found the leak, and it was not a manufacturer defect, it was a small puncture near the drivewell which we were able to fix in 10 minutes yesterday with a plastic welding kit.
