Trolling success!

Look at this fish!  It's a 30 inch mahi mahi, caught at approximately 620 feet depth.

Saturday morning we were up early and left the house at 8am on the dot and headed straight South.  At about 200 feet we set up our trolling rigs and headed (still South) until we were at 500 feet.  We had heard that the mahi mahi were at the 600 mark so while we had planned on staying at 500 we decided to push on until 600.

At that point we started trolling (at about 6.25mph) in East and West directions i.e. a straight line East for about 30 minutes and then turn and head West.  

We had two rods out - one with fake lure and the other with ballyhoo bait and hook.  Patrick first saw action on the ballyhoo line and pulled it in fast.  He disappointingly announced we had had a hit and the bait fish was bitten in half. A split second later he yelled, we have a fish, we have a fish - on the other rod. He started reeling in fast, keeping tension. I started easing down the speed on the boat - also keeping the tension. Then the last moment while pulling that beautiful fish on to the boat needs to be handled very carefully (and quickly) - these fish are strong and muscly, and jumpy!  They can jump themselves off the hook if they want to and you will lose them.  It has happened to us before!!! And it's killer.  But this one was not getting away.  Pics below