I got a call from Dave on Thursday and he told me it was time to get blood on the new and improved Blue Marlana! I was more than ready and motivated to climb aboard the beautiful new ice blue 35 Cabo Express! Man is she purty!!! We met Sunday morning at 4:30, Capt. Dave, his beautiful wife Marlana, Mr. Josh Hiller, Dr. Charlie Wolfe, and myself. We headed out at a smooth 26 knots towards the Spur hoping to find the reported rip from a couple days back. With no luck and only scattered grass we got our spread out around 7:45 (I think) trolling the contour towards Desoto Canyon. Within 30 minutes the center rigger fired off with Dave screamin' at the top of his lungs! A few minutes later Marlana had the first fish on the Blue Marlana, I nice 26 pound Mahi! About 30 minutes later the center rigger pops again and another mahi, but she spits while we're trying to get Charlie in is harness. The next hour or so was slow so Dave started working back north and we decide to put out all artificials and move out at a quicker pace. About an hour into this spread the port flat fired off and I set the hook (or so I thought) and a hoo was gone. This was to be the start of a productive couple of hours for Team Blue Marlana! Dave had found what looked like a pallet floating with lots of bait and dolphin swarming underneath. Our first pass yielded a screamin' wahoo and we were fired up! We pulled in all of the big baits and ran smaller baits with ballyhoo thinking we would fire up the mahi under that pallet! Then on our second pass the starboard long rigger went off and of course Marlana was hooked up with not a mahi, not a hoo, but the first billfish of 2007 for Blue Marlana. She busted the water and was taking the 70 wide for a ride when the line went slack! Dave screamed reel reel reel, but to know avail!!! Hiller I thought you set the hook!!!!! Oh well, we now new the 35 Cabo could raise some fish! Hell yes!!! Spread back in, and couple of hours later the Blue Marlana had seven hoos in the box, one nice Mahi, a story of the first billfish hook up, and a beautiful ride back to the dock. We did stop and bottom bumped with not much to show for it! Hiller had the jacks on fire with his jiggin' technique though! All in all, it was an amazing day with some great friends on a beautiful new 35 Cabo Express, The Blue Marlana! It's gonna be a great year!!!
