Weapons of Choice – Flexibility and Mobility

Cape Verde, May 2015

After fishing on our boat “Smoker” for 10 days we were able to add 16 blue marlins weighing up to 650 lbs. to our catch books. For the first five days we enjoyed very good weather conditions. A new current brought us warm, deep-blue water with plenty of fish and little wind. For the first few days we fished the Sao Vicente Bank and then changed our location, moving on to Santo Antoa where we fished the North West Bank for a couple of days. All in all you can say that the numbers of fish caught by the entire charter fleet have dropped by a good 50 % this season compared to last year. However, when viewed from a global standpoint this is still very, very good. 

For the second half of the trip the current changed overnight, bringing 2 degrees colder, green water and high winds. This made things a lot more difficult for the fleet. During this period we fished the lee side of Santo Antao Island.

As a rule we fished with 2 lures (single-hook rigs) on long riggers and 2-3 teasers at the short distances for bait & switch. Depending on the wind and current conditions we used our own Superjet, Honeyhooker, Little Grander, Striker and Chuggy lures for the positions further out. The teasers we used were Mr. Big, Grander 1238 and Big Smoker which proved to be very successful. 

In total we caught 16 blue marlin out of 26 strikes and raised a further 10 marlin which followed our teasers. In the first five days we released 2 good fish weighing an estimated 650 and 600 lbs. respectively. One marlin was in the 450 lbs. range while the remainder all averaged 250 to 350 lbs., typical weights for this location. 

Here are the full results:

Day 1 – 1:1 blue marlin and raised one more
Day 2 – 0:1 blue marlin and raised 1 more, released a spearfish and a wahoo
Day 3 – 3:5 blue marlin and raised 2 more
Day 4 – 5:7 blue marlin and raised 1 more
Day 5 – 1:1 blue marlin
Day 6 – 3:4 blue marlin and raised 1 more
Day 7 – 0:1 blue marlin
Day 8 – 0:1 blue marlin
Day 9 – 2:4 blue marlin and raised 3 more
Day 10 – 1:1 blue marlin and raised 1 more

Stephan Kreupl, May 2015