(Not Written by the HelmsMistress, but written about her)
Yep, you read the title right. The HelmMistress is also becoming our Mistress of the Deep, as we take every opportunity to troll with handlines while we’re underway. Even though we have a great trolling pole with a new badass reel, we’ve never even deployed it cause we troll via handlines. Are we successful with our handlines? Marginally. Honestly, we’re either going too fast to stop and drop the right bait in a great spot or we’re going too slow for fish that like to hit a surface lure at about 6 knts. However…it seems that whatever the HelmMistress has been doing with her trolling lately, we’ve been more successful.
Coming back from Concepcion Bay, it’s a long straight run of about 45 miles in which we had winds on…and off. In the last 45 minutes before we approached our anchorage at La Ramada, the HelmMistress latched onto a Dorado and brought it in.
But, we determined she was waaay too small to take and took out the hook, to let her go grow up and have lots of Dorado babies.
Last week, coming into Coronado Island, the HelmsMistress latched onto a small Wahoo on our handline, getting it all the way to the boat before it jumped the hook and took off. We’ll keep trolling by handline to try to catch the big one as we continue the trip, cause we think it evens the odds a bit more between man and fish!
Here on Tulum, we do troll solely by handling and are trying to improve our skills as we go. Wanna support our trolling and sailing habit? FOLLOW us as we work to build our blog and website.
