Our Fishing Score

We caught a number of tuna when Nick
was on board - always right at dinner time!

We have sailed nearly 12,000 nautical miles (nm) and done some fishing, but not as much as other boats. The fish are so big and our freezer is full so we don't want to catch more than we can eat fresh. And we have had our share of tangled lines and lost lures. That makes the "free" fish fairly expensive per pound! But fishing is fun and adds excitement to our days at sea.

As of now, our score is:

9 for S/V Trillium's catch
6 for the fish who have taken our lures
1 for the bird (who lost his life when he dove for a lure and got hooked)
 1 for the huge fish that cracked our pole and got away with     the big one we we trying to bring in (apparently this  happens frequently when a fish has been hooked and  slows down a bigger one snatches it often taking the lure and part of the line!)




Nick reeled in several tunas.

It was a sad day when we watched the bird make a foolish decision. Several of them kept circling and diving at our lures. We tried to scare them off by clapping, yelling and blasting the horn. They were insistent on going after our lure bobbing along near the surface. They must be color blind. Who would want to eat a hot pink hula dancer?

One was not to be turned away.  He ended up with a hook in his eye and beak. By the time we got him to the boat, it was too late to save him. He had drowned on the long reeling in process. We had to cut the hook to release him from the line. Both he and his partner had been diving at our lures. They were targeting their dinner, as were we. Neither of us were successful!

Priska removing the hook form the bird.

Priska, an intensive care nurse from Switzerland who was crewing with us, took care of the bird until we had to release him to the sea. It's partner kept circling and followed us for hours. Foolishly, it kept diving at the lures, too. So sad. We all felt bad about it. Michael from Denmark reeled it in, but found it too upsetting to handle the bird. I am glad Priska stepped up as I am not fond of feather creatures except to watch from a distance.

Dennis usually fillets the fish and I clean and cook it! We
only use the fillets and toss the rest back to the sea.
No blood allowed on the teak decks!

Our only catch of MahiMahi was in the Atlantic Ocean. In the Pacific Ocean, we had only caught tuna - yellow fin and blue fin. We had been hoping for a Wahoo or MahiMahi as we have had a lot of tuna. In fact, fresh tuna is relatively inexpensive and fresh daily in the markets. Here they call it blanc tuna for white meat as compared to the more red meat tuna. Personally, I like the blanc best. It is much less expensive than ground beef.


A Wahoo - FINALLY!

We finally landed a 36" Wahoo after losing two lures. Wahoo have very sharp teeth so it could have been one who bit off one lure. We are changing the fishing lines to 100 pound test as the fish out here are huge and we will run out of lures if we can't keep them on the line!



And sometimes it just turns out to be a mess!

At least we had several meals from the Wahoo. The first dinner was lightly breaded with a breaking mix from Annapolis Seafood Company. Next I made fish curry with pumpkin and potatoes over couscous, Then we had fish chowder for the final meal. Michael didn't  eat any animal meat or poultry so we had a lot of fish when he was onboard.

We haven't fished in Fiji as all of the fish belong to the villages. If one does catch a fish, you must take it ashore and hand it over. The villages own everything from the sea and whatever grows on land. We will put lines back in the water on our way to Vanuatu. But we have meat and poultry to consume before we reach New Caledonia and New Zealand where they have strict laws on what you cannot bring into the country.