10 year old catches 211 lb Broadbill Swordfish! 6-24-11

On the BNM today we had Andy and his two sons, Derek and Konrad out. They told me they wanted a swordfish, but would be happy with mahi. We caught some live bait first thing in the morning and then made our way out to the blue water. After an hour of running we saw a few birds working and hit our first school of mahi. We wound up catching about 15 keeper mahi on the way out to the sword grounds, nothing huge, but nice schoolies in the 3 to 7 lb range. We made our first sword drop around 10:30. After about 15 minutes we had a bite, unfortunately we missed him. Derek was a little dissapointed, but I told him it was a good sign that there was fish in the area. We make our second drop and drift for almost an hour. Wet get ready to break the weight off and bring in the bait and the rod tip bounces. We had a sword interested in our bait. After a couple of minutes of batting around the bait, he decides to eat. The rod bends over, the concrete weight breaks free, and Derek is hooked up. With 2400' of line out, I expect his brother and Dad to help him. But he says NO! We move him to the chair and he starts the battle. After an 1 hour and 30 minutes, we have the fish boat side and sink the gaffs into a beautiful 211 lb Broadbill Swordfish. It's a fish of a life time for anyone, and one of the best catches by a 10 year old kid out of Bud N Mary's Marina ever! Congrats!!!

Garrett takes down another Broadbill Swordfish! 6-23-11

We had Garrett and his father out today on the BNM for a Florida Keys Swordfish Charter. We left early this morning with one thing on everyones mind. Swordfish! On the way out we caught a handful of dolphin and finally made it to the sword grounds about 9:30 a.m. On the second drop, we hooked up. After a 30 minute fight, 12 year old Garrett had his second ever swordfish in the boat. It weighed almost as much as him, 84 lbs. At 1 p.m. we managed to hook another swordfish and his father brought that one to the boat. It was an exciting day of Florida Keys Fishing. Yesterday we had Larry and his 3 grandchildren for a standard offshore fishing trip. Early in the morning we found a piece of wood with a ton of fish! We managed to catch our limit of 40 mahi to 15 lbs and 4 wahoo off of it. With a box full Larry wanted to see if we could get his 2 older grandsons a permit. After an hour of trying we caught and released 2 BIG permit over 30 lbs!

Offshore 6-20/21 Swordfish, Mahi, Tuna, and Permit!

We had long time fishing buddies Michael and Jimmy from San Francisco, California out on the BNM the past two days for some Florida Keys Fishing Charters. We decided to do some daytime swordfishing both days. On the 20th we had a few swordfish bites, but just couldn't connect. We did catch some mahi and a handful of real nice blackfin tuna to 25 lbs on the way home. Today we knew we had some unfinished business with the swordfish. We left early and headed deep. We missed our first two bites, which was not a good start, and then finally around 11 a.m. we had a solid hook up. We fought the fish to the surface and something didn't seem right. After about 40 minutes we realized we had a foul hooked swordfish on. We backed off our drag and the fish made a tremendous run all the way back to the bottom in 1700'! We knew we didn't have much of a chance and bumped the drag back up and after about an hour we were able to get a gaff in the fish. The sword was close to 100lbs. As soon as we gaffed the fish the hook tore through the skin! Talk about being lucky! On the way home we stopped on the reef and Jimmy was able to catch and release his first permit too. A good two days of offshore fishing for these guys!

Bucket List... Swordfish... Check...

We had Greg from California out aboard the BNM yesterday, 6-17-11, for a daytime swordfish charter. He came down two years ago, but we got blown out and were unable to fish because of the wind. Fortunately this time the weather was very nice and we were able to make it to the swordfish grounds. He told me he always wanted to catch a broadbill swordfish, it was one thing on his "bucket list", so we gave it a shot. On our very first drop we hook up. Greg gets in the chair and cranks about 300 feet of line in and we hit our 1800' mark. The line is still tight and down, but I see a fish jump 1000' feet away! His sword raced up to the surface extremely fast, leaving a huge belly in the line, and I told him to crank for all he was worth. After about 15 minutes we were tight on the fish. It was a tug of war for the next 25 minutes. We get the sword 100' away, and he jumps out again, back to us, violently swinging his bill. We can tell the fish is big, definitely 200 plus lbs. He takes a little more line, but Greg stays on the fish, and a little after an hour, we sink our gaffs into his first Swordfish ever! He is ecstatic, and really worn out. We also caught a few dolphin, one nice one about 20 lbs, made a few more sword drops, missing one other one before heading to the scale. We hit the dock, and the sword weighed in at 206 lbs! Congrats on checking off a swordfish on your bucket list Greg! We Swordfished again today on the BNM, and had 3 bites our six drops. We hooked two of the fish, but they both got off about 1/2 way up from the bottom. We've got Garrett again on Thursday though, so hopefully we'll get him a sword then. We did stop on the way home though, and catch and release 3 permit to 20 lbs. Nice Work on your first permit Garrett!

Offshore Fishing 6-15-11/6-16-11

I had the pleasure of taking Ted from TUF-LINE out yesterday afternoon for a couple hours of reef fishing. TUF-LINE is all we use for our Daytime Swordfish here at Bud N Mary's Marina. (And it works on permit too) Ted had never caught a permit, and his buddy Jeff told him they were a lot of fun. The conditions were just right and after 5 minutes of fishing, we were hooked up to a pair of big Permit! After a 15 minute battle, we caught and released a double header. We also caught 2 more singles after those. Two of the fish were over 30 lbs! Today in the blue water we had long time custom Joseph from Texas catch a 43 lb bull dolphin and his friend Phil helped catch 18 other mahi in the 4 to 8 lb range. The dolphin (mahi) bite slowed down today from what it was the last few days, but most the boats still managed to catch what they needed by the end of the day.