Page 104 - South Mississippi Living - April, 2019

SPORTS & OUTDOORS hooked
FISHING OFFSHORE: story by Frank Wilem photos by Frank Wilem, Ron Salley and David Gross
ishing offshore is often like Forrest Gump and his chocolates, “You never know what you’re going to get.” It’s one of the things that draws me to it. While fishing a big game tournament in the northern gulf, we fished for
two days with only a single black fin tuna to show for all of our effort. Yet on another trip, we caught four blue marlin and won the tournament. Plus, we hooked the biggest fish I’ve ever caught.
I happened to be standing near the transom when I saw a 700-pound blue, all lit up, cruise by a few feet off the stern. It missed our right flat and then knocked down our right rigger without hooking up. But seconds later, it ate a blue and white Islander on our center rigger and we had a fish on — a BIG fish.
Though we didn’t know it at the time, it had become tail-wrapped. So, after fighting it for an hour-and-a- half, it died and sank to the bottom 700 feet below. Fishing with 50-pound test, I thought it was over, but thanks to Captain Eric Gill’s persistence, over the next hour and a half I got it to the surface.
Recently, we made a fishing trip down to Costa Rica. My daughter, Brittany, had been wanting to catch
a rooster fish so we chartered a boat and headed
out. Like billfish, rooster fish are a game fish which are released after the fight. We spent an hour or so catching live bonito for bait before beginning to troll near a series of large rocks. It wasn’t long before she hooked up a monster rooster — the biggest one I
had ever seen. Three times she fought it to the boat and the mate touched the leader each time making
it a caught fish before the fish straightened out the snap swivel and swam off. The captain estimated the weight at 90 pounds, which I felt was generous.
After this, Britt headed home and members of our
TOP LEFT PHOTO: Steven Kuljis, Frank Wilem (lying down) and Todd Rosetti with 700lb blue marlin that became tail-wrapped and died during the three hour ght. TOP RIGHT PHOTO: Tuna Trappe’s mate cleaning a nice mahi-mahi catch.
LOWER LEFT PHOTO: John Hairston (right) holds the “lit-up” mahi mahi which Frank Wilem (left) just boated.
LOWER RIGHT PHOTO: David Gross releasing a Paci c sail sh caught in Costa Rica aboard the Tuna Trappe.
104 SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living • April 2019 FOR MORE REFLECTIONS OF THE GULF COAST >> www.smliving.net