Trolling has to be one of the most frustrating ways to fish, but oh my gosh, when you hit that spot, so rewarding!!
As well as being frustrating, it is time consuming and just a plain old slog really. Essentially, you need to hook your rods and lines up with their bait, let them out about 100ft and then go ("troll") in straight lines in really deep water at about 6mph. The driver is on their feet for the whole time and your legs get sore at the knees so you need to constantly move around as much as you can (which is very little). Your back gets sore too.
The deepest we have ever trolled at is 300ft. Well, that changed this Sunday. We were approx 17 miles off the island, South direction (about 1/6 of the way to Cuba!!) and at about 1000ft. We slogged and slogged for about 3 hours (bearing in mind it took us about an hour to get out their) and nothing. We were tired, disheartened, and hungry - we had bought some food and snacks but not near enough!
Turning back to head home we decided to keep trolling on the way back in. And yesssss, at about 700ft deep we hit mahi mahi gold! A 26 incher and a 24. Actually we could have had a third but it broke the line before we could land it. So, so happy. But oh my gosh, pure exhausted.
What a day! Not something we will do often. You really need perfect, perfect conditions - you are very far out if anything goes wrong. We will go back to our regular 250/300 ft trolling and maybe do the real deep stuff only once or twice a year.
Two whoppers! Not the biggest mahi mahi that anyone has caught but by our standards we were just fine with them. We called our neighbour Brian over, told him all about the adventure, and offered him the top fish for dinner for his family. We didn't have to ask twice!
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