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!