O
ur daily tradition
is to leave Venice Marina
with a Prayer asking for
God’s protection and forgiveness. It is wise to ask
by Russ Pylant
Marsh & Bayou
for God’s favor in all endeavors especially when
venturing in to the deep blue waters. The crew
laughs and applauds. Captain Peace pushes
the throttle forward and the last bastion of civilization disappears in a flash. We arrive at the
swordfish grounds gung-ho for a busy day of
swordfishing. Captain Peace guides us to a
deep water canyon where the swordfish likes
to rest after a long night up at the surface
feeding and soaking up moonlight. We made
a drop to the ledge of a cliff with at least one
thousand feet of water between us and the
bottom.
Then we wait for that legendary “tap” of
the Jeff Vadakin Custom swordfish rod. We all
watch the rod for hours hypnotized by the motion of the rod tip. Then we made another
drop and another. Then we made a move to an
underwater mountain and dropped on its peak
hoping Mr. Stickface would be hanging around
hungry for a snack. It was a long day swordfishing. We
only had one bite and it was after 5pm.
Suddenly one of the crew shouted “Hey
there is some wood or something floating over
there!”. I immediately grabbed our Diawa
Dogfight rig with the Yo-Zuri Bull Pop floating
topwater bait attached.
We made a few cast and a school of small
Mahi followed the lure back to the
boat. The excitement went up a
notch. Another cast and one explodes on the lure and gets off in
the blink of an eye.
Captain Peace could tell they
were all small fish. As we get
closer and closer to the flotsam
one of the crew says “Hey, it looks
like a raft of some sort”. Upon
closer inspection it was pieces of
bamboo tied together with twine.
Is this Tom Sawyers raft or something from a tropical island that
has been floating for years? Our
floating trash became treasure as soon as we
established it was clearly built by a human
under circumstances that we would never understand. Was it to escape a deserted island?
Was a refugee from an oppressed land? Was it
simply part of a beach cabana from a resort in
Mexico, Central America, Bahamas!? Captain
Peace says “I bet Russ’ right arm there are
some Wahoo on this raft!” so we immediately
take the poppers off the Diawa Dogfight rigs
and wire up a Bomber CD30 and a MirrOlure
111MR. Ten seconds later, we hooked our first
wahoo! Michael Deris grabs the rod and the
fish breaks free.
Then the second rod hooks up a few seconds later. It was extreme excitement after
watching a single rod time from daylight until
dusk! Scott Grayson caught the first one then
Chris Pollard landed one a little larger then
Michael Deris made it back to the rod for redemption landing the largest fish. In a matter
of about fifteen minutes we were done for the
day with happy anglers and crew headed for
the pass. I have learned a lot fishing with
Peace over the years but one of the most important lessons is to never lose faith. We will
find the fish if we keep making a positive effort
and do all the small things that make a huge
difference in the end.
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