Miami Fishing Report, HOO-phin report for 9-11-10

Pops was in town for a few weeks and finally the weather was looking good so off we went, grabbed a few pilchards and headed offshore looking for phins, found some scattered weeds around 600 ft. and decided to send out the trollers, after 15 minutes or so the port long goes off!!!, not sure what it was but it was screaming and then gone, the strange thing was the skirted ballyhoo came back without any markings. We continued to troll our way out and found a nice weed line around 800 ft., my wife says that I think I see a PALLET, and it was, we trolled by it a few times but nothing to show for it, we then decided to pitch a few livies at it and we immediately had a nice phin on, Pops fought him for a few minutes than handed him over, it was a nice fish in the 8-10 lbs. range on 12 lbs. test, as we were moving back to the pallet Pops was sitting on the livewell with his pilchard in the water when he says “I got something and I cannot hold this anymore”, this rod has 20 lbs. test and 50 lbs. leader, the reel is screaming and nothing breaking the surface, so I said to them that this is a WAHOO but we do not have wire. The fish is making some nice runs but I am being patient as I am hoping for a WAHOO, finally after about a 15 minute battle that took us to depths of 200 ft. or more we see color and my wife yells “it`s a WAHOO”, so we the help of my wife we were able to get a nice gaff shot and put him in the box. My father has never caught a Wahoo nor could he understand why my wife and I were so excited, I told him that you will find out a dinner tonight and the fact that we were able to land a Wahoo without wire is a feat. Well after dinner that night he clearly understood why we were excited.
Until Next Time
Capt. John D.