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47 lb Wahoo!!

The marine forecast looked good, so I decided to call some friends and put together a last minute fishing trip for Sunday. I got three guys to go; Tim Gair, Jim Metcalfe, and Mike Belt. Tim and I put the boat in the water at Sumay Cove at 05:30 before the sun was up. Our plan was to troll up along the Glass breakwater and then run up and pick up Jim and Mike at the Agana Boat Basin. We had lines in the water at first light and we trolled all the way to the Cabras Power Plants without any takers, so we decided to pull the lines and run up to the boat basin. As Tim was bringing in the lines, the starboard line goes off. We could tell it was a small fish, and when we got it to the boat, it was a little barracuda. Boy do those fish have some balls, he hit a lure half his size! I wasn't too excited about catching a barracuda, but it was good to get the skunk off the boat. We picked up Jim and Mike at about 06:45 at the Boat Basin and made out way North. We put lines in just before Double Reef. Crossed over the pinnacle without any takers, and continued North. Chatter on the radio indicated that the fishing was pretty slow that morning, but we continued on despite that. We passed by the Taiwanese trawler that had run aground on the reef just South of the Governor's place. We rounded Ritidian point without any takers and decided to follow a few stray birds that were diving along Castros Beach. We were rescued from our boredom by a lone mahi mahi. We had her in the boat in no time; relatively small but satisfactory.
It was a little bumpy around Ritidian, and Jim was looking a little green so I decided to be nice and told him we would head around the point back into the lee of the island. We trolled all the way back down to Double Reef without any more hits. At Double Reef I decided that we would make one more run back up to Ritidian. On our way back around Ritidian, the port line goes off screaming...wahoo on! The guys worked together like a seasoned team, and had the lines cleared in no time. We got the hooter to the side of the boat and I made a terrible, albeit successful gaff shot mid body. Got the fish in the ice box and was feeling a little better about the day. I had told the guys I would have them back at the marina by Noon, so we turned around and headed South. We trolled all the way to hospital point without any more bites. We pulled the lines and Tim and I dropped Jim and Mike off at the Boat Basin about 12:30. Tim and I were going to go spearfishing for a couple of hours on the way back to Sumay Cove. We were running south along Asan Beach and we saw three mahi birds diving so we decided to put the lines back out. Made a couple of passes at the birds without any action so we continued trolling south. Our plan was to tie up at the buoy at Magundas Reef and do some spearfishing along the drop offs. As were were approaching the reef, we were just about to pull the lines, when the starboard flat line starts singing that sweet tune...big fish on! Tim started working the fish and seemed to be making pretty good progress. I cleared the other flat line and then we got the wahoo to the side of the boat pretty fast. I could tell that it was a big one. I leadered and placed a sweet gaff shot right behind the head. When I pulled the head out of the water, I knew we had a monster. Tim says, "should I get the bat?" I said, "Yes!!" Then the beating ensued. The cockpit on my boat it a little cramped and this fish was huge so I wanted it knocked out before bringing it on board. I held the head up high, and Tim proceeded to beat the crap out of this monster, but it didn't seem to phase him. He just got madder and madder. I was starting to strain and the fish decided to play dead, so I heaved him into the boat. He hits the deck and goes crazy! I lift him back up with the gaff and it took about another ten head blows to finally finish him off.
We got him in the fish box and surveyed the damage. There was blood and wahoo slime everywhere. We cleared the rest of the lines and then spent about ten minutes cleaning up the mess. We tried unsuccessfully to tie up to the magundas buoy, but it was too choppy and we couldn't get the line secured. So we decided to try diving at one of the buoys just inside of the breakwater. Tim had read some posts on a spearfishing board that you could occasionally see some dogtooth tuna haunting the wrecks there. So we tied up at the American Tanker and spent about and hour diving. We didn't shoot any fish, although I tried too...lol. It was good practice and I think that both Tim and I are improving our diving skills each time we go out. After our freediving, we ran back in to Sumay Cove and had the boat out of the water by about 16:30. We weighed the big wahoo at the dock and it came in at 47 lbs. That's a personal best for Tim and I and it also is the new Sumay Cove record! I had an awesome time on the water yesterday and I want to thank Tim, Jim, and Mike for going.

Everyone should watch this!

I first watched this video last November shortly after it was recorded. I was surfing the web this morning and came across a reference to it, so I watched it again. This lecture has something for everyone. It is well worth the hour and fifteen minutes. Enjoy!

Happy Easter!

We had a great Easter weekend. On friday evening, we had our friends the Wolferonis over for a fish dinner that I prepared. Grilled mahi and wahoo with a tropical fruit-pepper salsa. It was supposed to be a mango-pepper salsa that my sister Holly and her husband Matt made for Cyndi and I once, but there were no fresh mangos at the commissary so we substituted a jar of tropical fruit. The dinner was great and it was nice to share the food with our friends.

On Saturday Cyndi and I did the yard work in the morning. I weeded, dug up overgrown plants., moved and replanted plants, etc. in the planter box next to our front door and Cyndi mowed the lawn. Jonathan had a 2 PM soccer game. The heat was brutal, there was no shade and no wind. Jon Jon did great though. He even managed to scored a goal while the girl in the picture was pinching him and pushing him (she did get one penalty called for pushing :-). Jonathan was really pissed; I think if she hadn't been a girl he probably would have decked her! Cyndi and the boys decorated Easter eggs Saturday evening.

On Sunday, Jonathan and Andrew got up to look for Easter eggs and baskets. Jon Jon found his basket first! Followed shortly by Andrew. Jonathan really had a great time looking for all the Easter eggs that the Easter Bunny had hidden.

We were joined Sunday afternoon by the Hettel's; Connie, Josh, and Kendall. We took the boat out for a couple of hours for some Easter snorkeling. We tied up to a buoy just off of Dadi beach and had lunch and then spent an hour or so swimming and snorkeling. Connie managed to spot two unexploded shells amongst the coral on the bottom. They were pretty cool. We took some pictures with an underwater camera, I'll have to get the film developed when the roll is done. I'm not sure how they will turn out, the water was a little cloudy and I had to use the on camera flash.

There was a fairly big NW swell Sunday, and it was causing a 2-3 ft surge inside of the Sumay Cove marina. Because of the surge I decided not to try to put the boat back on the trailer so I tied the boat up to one of the moorings. I think I'll have to wait until about Wednesday to get it out of the water, its still surging pretty good down there right now (~1-2ft).

We finished off Sunday evening with some skateboarding at the skatepark and Cyndi and Connie watched "No Country for Old Men". I managed to mangle my right shin on one of the grinding rails at the skatepark. I was wearing all of my protective gear, so the damage was fairly light otherwise.

I'm still working on getting my other websites up and running, its taking a little longer than I anticipated. I'll let everyone know when they are ready.

Went spear-fishing Tuesday

On Tuesday my friend Tim Gair and I went spear-fishing. We kayaked over to Western Shoals and spent about 2 hours free diving. Really didn't see any big fish. We worked around the perimeter of the shoal and dove along the drop-offs. There is some really cool structure along the edge; walls, overhangs, pinnacles, etc... Most of the fish were hanging out under the overhangs. We saw once decent sized grouper, but before Tim could get lined up on him, he was swimming away. I shot my first fish tuesday, a relatively small flametail snapper; I swear it looked bigger underwater. I pan fried him as an afternoon snack yesterday. He was pretty tasty! He did have a lot of small bones, and I don't think I'll shoot any more fish unless they are much bigger.

Our Soccer Star!

Jonathan had another great soccer game this weekend. It was a hot day, very sunny, and the game was at 11 o'clock in the morning. Despite the heat, Jonathan did awesome. He really takes his games seriously. His team won the game 3 to 1 even though the other team had enough kids to rotate out the entire team every 10 minutes.

Andrew ended up not having a baseball game this weekend. Hopefully he will have his first game next weekend.

I went snorkeling this afternoon at Gab Gab beach right before the boys got home from school to get some exercise. It was high tide and the water was pretty clear; there has not been too much rain the last few days. There were lots of fish, more than usual. There was a decent size school of small barracudas, maybe 30 or so fish, that I swam really close to several times. They were very curious and didn't mind if I got really close, about 4-5 feet away. There were several large unicorn fish that were swimming with the barracudas. I spent a little time practicing stalking fish; for spearfishing. I had read several things online on some forums and I wanted to see what worked. One of the best pieces of advice that really works is to not follow the fish too much; it makes sense I guess, if you follow the fish they will swim away. It helps if you seem totally disinterested; I actually practiced looking away and keeping the fish in my peripheral vision. Then I would slowly work towards the fish at slight angle. The technique worked pretty good and I was able to get within shooting distance of several large unicorn fish and emperors. Tim and I are going to take the kayaks out later this week and do some spearfishing.

The week in review

Well, its the end of our first week back from vacation. Andrew had Terra Nova testing all week, which he seems to think that he did well on. He came home every day with reports that he felt that the tests were easy. He's a bright kid, so I'm sure he did very well. He liked the Terra Nova testing week because there was no homework.

Andrew and Jonathan ask just about every day if we can go to the skate park. They are both fast becoming very good! Jonathan can do things that I could barely do when I was twice his age. Andrew has had a great week and has made some huge gains at the skatepark. He finally overcame his fear and worked up the nerve to drop in on the 1/4 pipe, then the 1/2 pipe, and then the "big" speed ramp. He has mastered the ollie and is quick on his way to getting a kick-flip down.
I'm trying my hardest to stay one step ahead of them and enjoy myself at the same time. So far so good, I haven't had any more big spills. I'm wearing my wrist guards every time I skate which really helps with the bails. I've even talked Andrew into wearing wrist guards; you know how its not cool when your his age to were safety gear in front of the other kids. After he had a couple of good bails with them on, he now really likes them.

Jon Jon has a soccer game this weekend, and Andrew supposedly has a baseball game, but the little league here is amazingly unorganized. Its 8 pm the night before and we don't know when or where his game is tomorrow. According to some of the parents whose kids played last year, this is pretty much how the whole season will be. Oh well, thats life in Guam!

I still have not got my other websites back up and running yet...I'm working on it though. Hopefully I will have them done soon.

New dSLR from Nikon

Nikon just released a new digital SLR camera at the end of February, the Nikon D60. It falls somewhere between the D80 and D40 in Nikon's lineup. Anyone considering a new entry level consumer-oriented dSLR should give the D60 a serious look. Although it has the same image sensor as the D40x (10.2 megapixels), it has the new Expeed image processor from Nikon's new D3 and D300 cameras and should provide much better color rendition and tonality than the D40x. It is also the smallest dSLR that Nikon has every made.

We had a great vacation in Hawaii

Well, we had a fantastic time in Hawaii. The weather was great and we got to visit with lots of family. It was great to see Don and Shirley and spend time with them. A big THANK YOU goes out to Don for putting us up for the week at the Hilton.

It was also great to see my sister Holly and her husband Matt, as well as her dogs Bird and Wilson. Jonathan and Andrew were particularly tickled to play with Bird and Wilson. I think that Jonathan put Wilson through the paces with all rounds of sit, paw, other paw, etc...

Now that we are back in Guam, we are getting ready to start our first normal week. Cyndi goes back to work on Monday. The boys started school last week but only went for two days because they had Friday off for a teachers work day. So this week will be their first full week back in school.

Starting with a clean slate

Hey there everyone!

While upgrading my computer from Mac Os X 10.4 Tiger to 10.5 Leopard, in Hawaii on vacation (ya ya pretty dumb), the upgrade failed and my hard drive became corrupt. I had to do a clean install of the new operating system to get my computer up and running. I'm pretty good about backing up my data and didn't loose much, however, the one thing that I did loose was the ability to edit all of the content on my website that I have posted since last June. Instead of recreating everything, I have decided to make a fresh start, hence the new blog. There were some things I didn't like about blogging with iWeb, so I thought I would try something different. I hope to have my websites back up and running in a week or so. So check back here for updates; as soon as I have the new website up and running I will post a link on the blog.

I plan on moving most of the posts from my old blog to this new blog. I hope to get them transfered within the next week or so.

Wahoo at Ritidian Point

Got back from Hawaii and the weather was great! Cyndi and I took the boat out on Wednesday while the boys were at school. Our plan was to go snorkeling at Double Reef after a little fishing. Well, the seas were calm and as we were cruising by the Governor's place, we got a call on the radio that a boat near us had just caught a 45 lb wahoo. I had a mahi spread out, so I switched out a couple of my lures to add a little variety and maybe catch a wahoo. We made a couple passes through the area, but no hook-ups. Since the seas were so calm, I decided we would head around Ritidian Point for a look. Cruised up to Castro's Beach without any action so decided to head back towards Double Reef to go snorkeling. Just before we rounded Ritidian Point, the port flat line goes screaming off! After about 10 seconds, the fish is off. This got both Cyndi and I a little excited! I decided to make one more pass through the area, and before I could even get the boat turned around, the same lure get slammed again. This time the fish is on and I start working it towards the boat. Then all the sudden the fish makes his move, and the line goes screaming off. From the sound of the reel, I know that this is the biggest fish that I have hooked on my boat thus far. The line was peeling off so fast I thought maybe the fish got sharked. Then the resistance fell off and I thought that maybe the fish had broken off. I kept reeling, to keep the line taught and then the beast surfaced and shook his head about 25 yards behind the boat! It was a huge wahoo, probably at least 50 lbs! I slowly was able to work the fish to the side of the boat. In all the excitement I had not put on any gloves to leader the fish (big mistake). With the gaff in one hand and the leader in the other, I tried to get the fish in the boat. Every time I went for him with the gaff, he would pull the line out of my hand and dive down out of sight. I would reel him back up with my left hand and then grab the leader again. I probably did this three times. Eventually he got behind the port engine and as I was struggling to get him back to the side of the boat, the hook on the Rapala mag 30 bent out. Ohh my, if you could have heard the soliloquy of profanity that streamed from my mouth, it would have made your ears sting. After loosing that fish, we spent another hour or so trying for another. We got one more hook-up that also got off a few yards behind the boat. We ended up not going snorkeling, because we had to get back home to meet the kids after school. Overall it was an exciting, but disappointing day on the water.

It looked like the weather was going to hold for one more day before the winds picked back up, so I called my friend Tim to see if he was up for fishing on Thursday. He was game so we made plans to head out of the Boat Basin at 08:00. We had lines in the water by about 9:20. We saw a few mahi jumping near Double Reef but no takers. We trolled all the way to Ritidian without a single hit. I was anxious to get the skunk off the boat. The seas were not that big, maybe 3-4 feet, but the waves were coming at this very short interval, which made the ride pretty rough. We bounced our way through the washing machine without any action. Tim spotted some birds off Ritidian, so we headed for them. Looked like Kawa Kawa at the surface, so we changed out the two flat lines for some small jets to see if we could catch some. We worked the birds for about 30 minutes without a single hit. So we switched the lures back out for the wahoo lures and started heading back towards the coast. Next thing ya know, wahoo on! We got the wahoo in the boat, and as we were cleaning up all the blood, I watched another wahoo sky just behind the boat as it missed one of our floating lures; we were only doing about 3 knots. Just as I was telling Tim that I saw a wahoo sky on our lure, the port outrigger goes off (white/blue Big Blue Cavitator again!). Wahoo on, and this one is bigger than the last. Time started working him towards the boat. As soon as he got close to the boat he made a second run, and it sounded like a pretty good fish. We got this one in the boat no problem, he was about 29 lbs. At that point we were feeling a little queazy, so we decided to head back around Ritidian and take a break in the lee of the island. As we were trolling towards Double Reef, we had a mahi hit the Rapala mag 30. After a mild tangle, we got her in the boat.

Tim had brought his spear gun that he has been itching to try out, so we pulled the lines and tied up at the white buoy north of Double Reef. We got geared up and spent just under 2 hours spear fishing. Well, we mostly spent the time snorkeling and practicing our free diving. I missed a couple shots at some parrot fish. Tim shot his first fish, a tiny parrot fish. It was an impressive shot considering how small the fish was.

After the spear fishing, we trolled back down to Hospital Point before pulling the lines. I think we were back at the marina by about 1600. Overall, we had a great day on the water. Sold the big wahoo and the mahi at the co-op and kept the 12 lb wahoo for dinner the next night. Cyndi made some of her best fish tacos yet!

Sorry no pics, I forgot my camera both days.