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Miami - Haulover to Fowey Light
Capt. Dean Panos
November 6, 2003
Miami - Saltwater Fishing Report
Double D Charters
11/06/03
It has been windy and rough for almost a week, and although you can sailfish in that all day, windy weather can be problematic for swordfishing, especially with winds out of the N – NE at 20 mph. Last night the wind laid down some, and that was good since I had a charter that wanted to try to catch a swordfish on fly. I would have wanted to fish a new moon to try to catch a sword on fly, but this was the only night this client was going to be in town. I got some sword flies from Todd Richter, and off we went. While my client was going to fly fish, we were still going to put out our normal spread of dead squid and live baits.
As we were setting out the third jug, the second jug gets ripped off and line starts peeling off the reel. We got a hookset quick, but then it came off. We kept reeling up the squid and could feel the sword whacking it on the way up. We got another hookset, got the angler set up, but the hook pulled again. We got set up again and after a few minutes the 100ft tip rod goes off, but screaming. Unlike swordfish, this fished never came up and was sizzling line off the reel. 10 minutes later, after running around the boat trying to keep this fish on, it bit clear through the leader. Obviously a shark, but from the speed of the runs, probably a mako.
Lines out again, then the deep tip rod starts getting slammed. I instructed my angler to get tight on the fish and after what seemed like an eternity, the rod bent over hard. The fish then came straight up and jumped. I caught the tail end of the splash, but figured it out to be about a 150 pounder. Wrong Guess! The fished then dumped 300 yards of line in a hurry. Obviously a big fish, and a lot bigger than we thought. Thusly, the drag got pushed up to 28 pounds.
After some suicidal runs and one hour into the battle, the first angler passed over the rod to his buddy. Hanging on to a rod, even in a harness with 28 pounds of drag is truly commendable. The fish now had over half the line out and still pulling hard against all that drag. This is why I fish 80 wides with 80-pound mono. We fish big reels for big fish. If we were fighting this fish with the normal 10 – 12 pounds of drag, we would have been stripped many times over. The second angler fought him for 35 minutes. At one point the sword came flying straight out of the water. He was completely airborne and vertical in the moonlight. His bill, body and entire tail were out of the water. At this point, I figured very close to a 400-pound fish. That sight is now etched in my mind forever! After that jump, the fish dumped half the spool again. By now the 2nd angler was done, and guess who was next. I got in the harness, and couldn’t believe what this fish was doing with more than 28 pounds of heat on him. I was impressed and shortly there after getting my butt kicked by this fish. They say, when faced with adversity, dig down and fight back. I would get the fish up to the 100 ft mark, and he would effortlessly take us back down to the 400 or 500 ft mark. After twenty-five minutes we got him up enough that we sank a flyer and a harpoon in him. With the adrenaline still pumping, we didn’t even opt to go through the tuna door, but instead my mate and I pulled him over the gunnel. Two hours later we had a fish of a lifetime in the boat. The fish from the tip of his bill to the very end of his tail was every bit of 14 feet. The fork length was 91 inches with a 56-inch girth.
Since fly-fishing was our goal, we continued fishing. And hour later we got another hook up and landed a 50-inch sword. This one also came up jumping. As midnight was approaching, the deep tip goes off again, we got tight; the fish came up to the surface, and then sounded. This was another big fish. Although it didn’t feel as big as our first Godzilla, it looked by the fight and drag setting, to be at least 150 to 200 pounds. 30 minutes later we called it a night, and headed to Lighthouse Point Marina, to get an accurate weight. After a lot of huffing and puffing we got the swordfish on the scale and even with a foot of his bill in the water he weighed in at 340 pounds. The next day I got a call, and was told the scale was off by 9 pounds to our favor, and thusly the official weight now stands at 349 pounds.
This is what I live for every day. The possibility of catching a fish like this exists on almost any given night, but obviously it does not happen that often. This is our second fish over 300 pounds this year, and their strength is not proportional to their weight. This fish fought much harder than the other 300 pounder we caught this year. I would hate (not really, I would actually love) to see what a 400 pounder can do.
So get ready, be flexible with your schedule (as weather permits) and lets go get that fish of a lifetime!
Tight Lines and Good Fishing,
Capt. Dean Panos
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