Epic Day!

 Where do I begin? Thankfully, the forecast swells and wind did not arrive today.  The morning started with a great sunrise and just got better from there.  Bright sunshine gave us fantastic light and the sea was calm with a series of long rolling swells.  Action in the morning was quiet.  Unfortunately there is no "How to Shoot Photos of Blue Marlin" handbook.  It's very much of a "what if we do this or what if we try that?" kind of game.  The first fish we raised was a disaster.  It attacked the right squid chain after smashing up the right long.  The crew called it as I got ready.  I jumped in and saw nothing, but as I spun around just passing the long teaser I saw the blue hiding in the prop wash.  He seemed to understand that I couldn't get a clean shot of him in there.  Seconds later he was gone.  It was over before it had even begun.

 

We went into a post-play huddle to work out what had gone wrong.  With a few adjustments to the play book the next blue presented itself an hour later.  This time we were on the money.  As I got in the water right behind the squid chain was a blue bearing down on me like a freight train.  This fish and I were on a collision course and it was making no signs of changing his mind. There I was playing chicken with a blue marlin.  I held on to the camera, pulled the shutter release, and waited for the bang!  He just missed hitting me and disappeared after the teaser.  I checked the LCD display, and I had it!!!   As I swam back to the boat I was joined by a bull shark who followed me, getting closer.  I would turn and he'd move away but was straight back on my heels the moment I turned my back.  

 

Back at the boat the guys were still playing with the marlin.  He was climbing all over a hookless teaser Tommy was casting to him and would alternate hits with the squid chain still hanging from the teaser.  I arrived back just in time to watch him swim away all lit up in luminous hues of blue.

I think we're starting to get the hang of this and will be back out tomorrow to try it again.

Hope

Packing For St Thomas

As you may know we are moving to a new blog more initigrated into the website.  I'm dulicating the blog here for a few more entries until the traffic has moved.  To view the new blog click here. www.occhioinc.com/blog

The last few weeks have been hell.  This year has seen one of the biggest white marlin runs ever here in North Carolina.  Between Ocean City and Oregon Inlet the white marlin have been going ballistic.  One boat released 57 in a single trip.  And I’ve been stuck in the gallery.  By last weekend I’d had enough and decided I could squeeze out a short break from the office early in the week.  I traveled up to Pirate’s Cove on Monday afternoon to join the Waste Knot for a late-season shot at the action.  I stood on the end of the dock and watched as the Waste Knot came under the bridge.  As she made the turn down the channel, I noticed that her starboard rigger was jammed tight with blue flags showing off 14 white marlin releases for the day.  They had hit bait ball after bait ball with white marlin cutting sardines and minnows with some 50-pound yellow fin tuna mixed in for some spice.  This was it, I was convinced.  I was not too late!
We left the dock at 5:30 the next morning under breezy conditions with a forecast for a perfect day.  I hadn’t slept all night, like a kid at Christmas hoping for his first bike.  Cameras were prepped, mentally I was ready, the shot I wanted so well-visualized in my mind it was as good as hanging in the gallery.  The day ended a skunk.  Not a single white marlin in sight.  I was devastated.  The only consolation was the fact that I was l leaving for St. Thomas in a few days for another chance at a way more elusive adversary, the blue marlin.  It’s this hope of the next great shot that keeps me doing this insane and often seemingly impossible thing that I do.
Yesterday, while packing for St. Thomas, I got a phone message from Keith English, the owner of Click Through, the 68′ Wanchese that I was to be working on in the Virgin Islands.  He said, “Have you seen the weather forecast for the islands?  It’s looking really nasty all week.  The forecast is for 9′ seas and 20 knot winds off the fishing grounds of the North Drop and it’s going to rain–a lot.”

I left messages for a few captains down in St. T., including Matt, the captain of the Click Through.  Then I called the airlines to cancel.  Matt called me back with the news that, yes, the weather was crappy, but boats where hooking up 6+ blues a day.  I spent the afternoon changing my mind every 10 minutes, like that Clash song, “Should I stay or should I go? If I go there will be trouble, if I stay it will be double.”  Call it potential, possibility, or even hope, but I guess I suffer from that uniquely human trait that allows us, in the face of very small odds to believe that there is a chance I can pull this off.
It’s with this hope in mind that I sit writing the first entry to my St. Thomas blog from the airport on my way south.  I will try to update daily over the next week as I try for my blue shot.  You can also follow me daily on my SPOT tracker in real time.  I hope you will join me.

We are packing up and moving blog sites.

Hi,
Well for those of you who have been following my blog over the last year, you will soon see a new look and address.  In an effort to intergrate our blog into the website we've moved it to a new home.  So bookmark this address www.occhioinc.com/blog and follow us around in future from there.  Thank you to the almost 3000 people who have been reading our blog so far!

The link below is a link to our current Occhio newsletter, take a read and  learn more about what's up with Occhio and what's coming up soon.
http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs045/1103105356571/archive/1103583958851.html
Cheers
Marc

Big Last Day

All good things must come to an end.  Today saw the first day of the Bermuda Billfish Classic and my last day on the water with the Click Through crew.  Click Through took the day prize, is in the lead for the Billfish Classic, and now is right on the transom of Que Mas for the whole Bermuda Triple Crown.  Three blue marlin released in a single day is a great day's fishing for one boat in anyone's book.  My hat's off to a top class owner and crew. The weather wasn't as cooperative with pouring rain and 4' to 6' seas.  Not a good day for photography except for a few parade shots from this morning.

Tomorrow I board a plane back to Morehead City after a fantastic week. Keith and Josie English have been incredible hosts.  The crew of Captain Matt Mauldwin, mates Courtney Stanley and Rustan Rood were top notch.  Asking a world class crew to "fish" with no hooks for a few days so I could get some pix was a tall order.  Needless to say it was all smiles the day the hooks went back into the lures. Highlights this week were of course jumping into the path of high speed lures and coming face to face with hunting white marlin as they exploded out of the cloud of cavitation.  These were starting steps toward the blue shot, but showing a lot of promise.

I bid farewell to beautiful Bermuda as I make plans for my next adventure chasing blues with the same crew in St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands in just a few months.

White Hot Bermuda

To see the video, click here.


Today was spectacular!  The ocean was slick, calm, and burple it was so clear.  Under a bright sun we made the trip to Challenger Bank.  The plan was to try and tease a marlin to within photo range of the camera from behind the boat. That meant trawling a spread of hookless lures which would raise a fish close enough to the boat for us to see it, then in a matter of seconds, I needed to be kitted up with free-dive gear and camera and jump from the moving boat, right myself, point the camera toward the speeding lures and hope there was something still following behind.

The captain, Matt Mauldwin, mates Courtney Stanley and Rustan Rood were incredible.  First calling the fish before I could see it as it swam up and then guiding the lines over my head once I was in the water.  The first raised fish happened so fast.  No sooner had I cleared the cloud of cavitation than there it was heading straight for me.  I'm not sure who got a bigger fright, me or the white marlin.  On reviewing the footage we found that there had been two whites, one on the short rigger, the other on the long.  As I approached the fish it was in full feed prey response mode attacking the lure, in an instant it made a 90 degree turn and in a split second dulled its stripes, turning a very pale white.  It raised its dorsal a time or two and then retracted it into the recess on its back while hightailing it back to the lures now a hundred yards away.

This behavior was pretty standard for all the fish we raised, four whites and a blue who disappeared before I got to him.  All in all a great day on the water with more to follow tomorrow.

Bermuda Billfish Blast

It's the end of a great two days of fishing.  The Bermuda Billfish Blast is the first of three Bermudian marlin tournaments.  The Bermuda Billfish Blast, the Bermuda Classic and the Seahorse make up the Triple Crown which, to force an analogy, could be called the Kentucky Derby of marlin fishing.  The crews, owners, and boats are of the highest pedigree.  Being in Bermuda makes it all the more civil, with short pants, ties, and English accents.  This weekend's Bermuda Blast runs concurrent with one of the most interesting marlin tournaments in the world,  the World Cup.

If you sign up,  for one day on the 4th of July you may fish any destination around the world that has a qualified weigh station.  The last time zones are still fishing as I hack away but so far there is a 1097 lb. fish from Cape Verde on the Happy Hooker, that's a big fish to beat!  It's kinda cool to think about all the tournament fleets catching the light as the world turns to chase a single fish in a world-wide challenge.  Check back for final results which are far from certain as the light disappears over the horizon here in beautiful Bermuda.

As for the Bermuda Blast, yesterday was the release day of the tournament.  Marlin could not be killed and were all released for points.  Que Mas blew the fleet away with five blue marlin releases.  We ended yesterday in second spot with two released blues on Click Through.  The sea laid this morning as we left Pitt's Bay full of anticipation.  Que Mas exploded through the gate with a hook up after lines in, which they dropped.  A few fish were released today but it was slow fishing.  We saw nothing, which ultimately bumped us into third place.  After yesterday's bite, which saw Bermuda on form, today was quiet.  No fish were killed in the tournament.

Tomorrow we switch from tournament mode back to photo mode in search of the blue.  I will hopefully have more photos and video for you then.

Clicking through the blues and white!

Blue Marlin Video
I've been slow posting for the last two days because of an almost non-existent wireless signal at the marina.  However I'm now back.  I've figured out that it's much better to make my way from the boat to the yacht club bar area where the signal seems to be strongest.

Wednesday was one of the best fishing days I've had without even seeing a fish. The Click Through crew have dived right in and are incredible in trying to help with my impossible shot of a free swimming blue.  On Wednesday we decided as a group to start at the bottom and test a few "there is no way" techniques to cross them off the "this is how we did it" list.  At one stage I thought we needed a film crew from Jack Ass to get me jumping overboard doing 8 kts with a 15-pound housing in my hands and then trying to find the raised fish in the prop wash.  Doing the calculations, the marlin is traveling at probably somewhere around 20 kts to catch the teaser which is traveling around 8 kts.  Once I jump in and come to an instant stop, that pointy fish comes out of the cavitation clouds VERY quickly...oops!

After yesterday, we are now becoming a well-oiled machine.  If this works it's because of the team.  I find myself part of a practiced crew.  That said, there are a few people on board still getting used to the fact that we are pulling hookless lures through these marlin rich waters.

Today we woke up to rain and clouds.  It's not the time to waste a less than perfect photo environment on a "hookless" experiment.  Instead, we put the hooks back and shot some VIDEO plus a few stills.  We started with a blue marlin this morning followed by my first white marlin underwater, both released (above: Courtney Stanley releases a white marlin).  The afternoon saw a nice blue dropped and half a dozen tire-kicking white marlin tugs at the big lures.  All of course good training for the first tournament starting Saturday (I had dates mixed up in a previous post).  All in all, a good day!