Skipping flyfishing lure.

I couldn’t imagine a more visual, exciting way to troll offshore. It was like working a topwater bait through a school of seawall-smashing jack crevalle. On the first pass, where our bait skipped right through some busting tuna, I couldn’t keep my eyes off the bait. Each wave seemed like an event. The bait was so far off our port side that it didn’t seem like it was our bait, no longer an attached rubber fish.

The first hit sent the bait several feet in the air, bringing screams from the cockpit, but like in a featherweight bout, you didn’t have to wait long for the next strike. As soon as the bait skipped across the next wave it was hit again and again, causing a tremendous explosion of water. I could only imagine what it must have looked like under the water as the fish fought each other to get to the fleeing baitfish imitation.

The instant the line popped from the kite clip George was yelling at Geoffrey to reel. No hookset, just reel. This is where George feels the outcome—landing or losing the fish—is determined. You have to have a reel with a fast retrieve to take up any slack in the line. Mark Davis was first to the rod and didn’t need any added encouragement to reel; he had the 30-pound conventional reel stuck in his hip and was a blur reeling and pumping.

It didn’t take long to get the first tuna to the boat, skipjack tuna to be specific. A nice fish but we were just getting started. There wasn’t much time spent high fiving and celebrating. In just the time it took to turn the boat toward the birds, the bait was pulled off the transom and flying back into position.

This time a big dolphin entered the fray. Everyone on the boat but me saw the enormous head of a giant bull dolphin crash the bait, sending it in the air, and then hitting it a second time. But like most heavyweights, it wasn’t able to finish with a three-punch combination and was beat out by a faster striking tuna.

Judging by the way the line was peeling off the reel, it was a much bigger tuna than our last one. It was Geoffrey’s girlfriend Jody’s turn. It took ten or more minutes to land the 20-plus-pound blackfin, almost more than a match for the hundred-pound Jody.

And that’s the way it went, two more passes, two more tuna. I looked around and there were still a few boats trolling around the hump and it really didn’t look like they were catching anything. Our action was so constant that it was hard to really tell, but I left sure they weren’t having the success we were having.

The Marathon Hump comes into view.

Using kites to troll isn’t totally innovative. A few South Florida skippers have been flying, so to speak, below the radar and doing this for years. Many probably got the idea while drifting a kite bait, and having to make a run to a free-jumping sail, and hooking up on the fast-trolled kite bait.

It was only a matter of time before the ingenuity of a few good fishermen figured out how to use easily bought artificials to do the job of livies.

About the time I was going to comment that the birds had departed, George got a call on the radio reporting a big blue marlin right behind a small dolphin another boat had on. With the excitement of two hours of constant fish attacks it seemed only fitting that a big blue was next. Scanning the horizon, I could read the captain’s mind: no birds—our first five minutes without a blowup—it was time to go for the marlin.

Captain and crew were quick to shift gears. As Geoffrey reeled in the bait and kite, George deboned one of the skipjacks and inserted a 15/0 J-hook, from the bottom through the tip of the nose. In less than five minutes we were marlin fishing.

As we watched the tethered tuna, just 20 feet off our transom being trolled at six knots, everyone was still on point—something not normally associated with big-game trolling. But, once you experience the excitement of trolling with a kite and rubber flyingfish your days of uneventful hours of trolling will be over.

FS