 Gary Clifford
True Blue
St George's
Grenada W.I.
Tel/Fax (473) 444 2048
Email: grclifford@caribsurf.com
3 April, 2002
When I got the call from Laura McNeil that a "very experienced" fishing
friend of hers was coming to Grenada and wanted to do a days fishing with an
experienced skipper I was interested. When she told me that the friend was
one Karen Monaghan and that she presented a television fishing show and had
caught several blue marlin before - I was a little nervous. As we all know
fishing is one of those sports where the more anxious you are to succeed the
greater the risk that Mother Nature will turn round and kick you in the
teeth! I guess that I felt that even though I had been fishing here for 6
years and was currently the most successful charter boat in Grenada - it
might still not be enough! This was compounded by the fact that on our last
trip out 2 days earlier we had only had 1 bite - admittedly a big yellowfin
(150lb) that took an hour to boat, but still not much action for an 8-hour
day.
Anyway I put those thoughts aside and managed to convince Laura that I was
the man for the job and the date was set for Monday 18 March.
For various reasons we did not reach the Grenada Yacht Club dock where I
keep the 31' Innovator "Yes Aye" until 8.50 am on the Monday morning - half
an hour later than planned. I decided to run out 6 miles NW from the St
George's harbour, which put us a mile or so inside the 3000ft contour on the
Caribbean side of the island. In the last 2 months most of our success had
been occurring in this area between the 3000 & 6000ft ledges. There was a
5ft swell running out of the NE, which was more than I had expected but the
sea was pure blue so I was hopeful of some good action if we could find the
fish. By the time we had set our normal 5 line & 2-teaser spread we were
over the drop off and looking for birds. The spread consisted of 3 ballyhoo
fished with Island Sailure skirts, 2 as flat lines and one on the right
rigger, a widerange senior black/purple marlin lure on the left rigger and a
soft bird and std widerange fished as a shotgun well back. We ran a big
kahuna mirrored teaser off a stern cleat and a string of moldcraft soft
squid as a bridge teaser.
Several small longliners had already set their lines inside the edge but we
moved beyond them and I soon spotted a flock of brown boobies in the
distance. As we got closer it became apparent that there were smaller groups
of white terns working fish just outside where the boobies were diving.
>From the way the terns were behaving I suspected that they would be on
sailfish but I was proven wrong when mate Lesley converted the first strike
(on a flat lined ballyhoo) into a hook up on a white marlin. This fish
although not large gave Karen a stubborn fight on 30lb test before it was
tagged, photographed & released estimated 45-50lb. No sooner had we set the
lines than the action was repeated except that this time the white jumped
and threw the hook.
We worked the area for a while longer but it appeared that although the
boobies were still diving on small baitfish, the terns and white marlin had
moved elsewhere. We then went further North heading out in the direction of
the 6000ft drop off, crossing another long-line before again spotting birds
in the distance. This time there appeared to be a mixture of boobies and
frigate birds so I suspected tuna with the possibility of dorado and maybe
marlin. As we approached the birds I could see a whale breaching beyond them
and called down to the cockpit to alert the anglers to this. As Karen was
looking to see the whale the left rigger went down and Lesley grabbed the
50lb outfit and started jigging the rod. We all watched as a blue marlin
came up and tried about 5 times to eat the lure before inhaling it - I
gunned the engines briefly to help set the hook and the fish started to
thrash and push itself half out of the water. I knew it was not a massive
fish but it still gave Karen a good fight for almost an hour before we got
the leader and I tagged the fish, which I estimated at 125 - 140lb. We never
got a photo of that fish though because it was behaving badly beside the
boat and released itself from both Lesley's grip and the hook as we watched
it swam strongly away.
This early success gave me a strong hope that we might achieve a billfish
grand slam - all we needed was a sailfish and we still had over 5 hours of
fishing time to find one!
Whilst fighting the blue the birds had moved away but I had noted the
general direction they were heading and followed them. We had crossed the
6000ft drop off and were approaching an area we call "the hole" before we
started to get closer to the birds again. I felt confident of raising some
fish if we could catch up to them but as it happened we had a heavy strike
on the left flat line before we got there. As the line peeled quickly off
the 50lb tuna stick outfit all those in the cockpit saw a marlin clear the
water. However we had to wait a gruelling 4 hours to see the fish again when
a big yellowfin tuna broke the surface! The marlin and tuna must have
entered the spread at the same time but the tuna got to the bait first! The
tuna never took more than about 250yds of line off the Penn 50TW but all of
it was going straight down. This put all the strain directly onto Karen's
back & arms and she told me afterwards that although she was very happy to
catch this fish, she would not be in a rush to catch another one! To her
credit Karen stayed on the rod throughout the fight - I have seen many big
men turn to jelly under that much pressure in an hour or so. Towards the end
we could tell the tuna was getting tired as it started to do figure eight
movements below the boat and finally it yielded to the pressure and came
within gaff range. With Lesley on the leader I planted the 4" gaff in the
top of the fish but did not feel confident to pull the fish through the
transom door until we had planted a flying gaff as well. Even so the fish
was still trying to swim away and it was very difficult to get the fish
through the door. Eventually we succeeded although a lot of ocean entered
the cockpit at the same time. I thought the fish looked bigger than the last
one we had caught, but when weighed the next day it was in the same category
at about 155lb. When we hooked the tuna at 1pm we were 14 miles out but when
we landed it at 6pm we were 20 miles from the dock so it was fully dark by
the time we four tired but happy people got back.
Thanks to Karen & Laura for giving us the chance to go out there and have so
much fun - I hope to fish with you all again one day.
Sincerely,
Gary Clifford
True Blue Sportfishing
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