“Gavito” grabs a Grander!

Yesterday the 22nd July “Gavito” set out from Calheta Marina for a full days Big Game Fishing with 3 clients. We headed East towards Funchal with a full spread of 5 lures behind. We ran a 9” Moldcraft purple and black on the shotgun,  Moldcaft Wide Range lures in purple and silver, blue and white on each of the outriggers and Moldcraft Wide Range Magnum on the short corners.

After about 3 hours of steaming around at 7/7.5 knots just off Capo Girao we hasd a hit on the starboard outrigger and the reel screamed as the fish ran off line. We hit strike to set the hook and then backed the drag off a bit to allow the fish to run, but under some pressure whilst we retrieved the remaining lines and cleared the deck for action.

The client, Spencer King, got into the chair and we set him up with the rod in the gimble and connected the harness to the reel lugs. He then started work. We had seen the strike and knew that we had a big fish on the line, but did not at that stage know just how big. The fight took about 1.75 hours and we measured the fish at about 13.5 feedt in length and about 50” around the girth. This meant that the fish was about 1000 – 1300 lbs. The fish was boated, de-hooked and recovered for release.

The best thing about this is that “Gavito” has now had 4 strikes out of 5 trips. The first was 800 lbs. The second was a little smaller at about 600 lbs. the third was of unknown weight as the client of the day locked the reel drag and we lost the fish and now this a great way to continue the season. Spencer still has 4 more days to fish with us and we hope that we can maintain the trend. Yesterday was his first ever Blue Marlin and what a beauty.

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