Steve Bledsoe
First Swordfish of the year

"Our first and hopefully not our last. 228.5 lbs - perfect day, perfect fish, perfect crew, perfect timing. It doesn't get any better than this for us. The fish was taken at the 289 and took approximately 2 hours to land. "
NO EXCUSES

In the group photo are (lft. to rt.)
Niall Devoy, Bob Cravens, Steve Bledsoe, Rich Duncan and Dave Devoy

My Frst Swordfish - Steve Bledsoe

The following event took place aboard the vessel No Excuses on Saturday  July 22, 2000

While searching for marlin and paddy hopping near the 289-Fathom spot last Saturday morning, I and my crew of Rich Duncan, Bob Cravens and Dave and Nial Devoy, encountered a single finning broadbill swordfish. When Rich spotted the fish in the gyros, Bob took the wheel and I descended from the bridge to get the swordie rig ready. Like so many of our friends, we always carry an outfit and bait especially for such an occasion. In our case, we had a 50 International 2-speed reel full of 80# mono mounted to a 5.5-ft. all roller rod. On this day, we had a frozen giant squid on hand just waiting for this opportunity. This particular squid was about 24" long. With the squid pinned on a double 7/0 hook rig, Bob made a slow wide circle around the fish as I dropped the bait back 50-yds or so behind the boat. The fish stayed up the whole time and never appeared to get excited or "spooky". When we had the bait positioned in front of the swordfish, Bob stopped the boat. The fish immediately turned towards the bait and attempted to eat it. On its first attempt, the fish actually missed the bait or possibly it was just checking it out, because it swam between the boat and the bait approximately three feet away from the bait. When the fish did that, my line caught its dorsal fin, which caused the dead bait to move. The fish then immediately made a quick 180 degree turn to the left, struck the squid with its bill and ate it. The time was 1:55 PM.  

From a dead boat, I let the fish take about 150 yards of line before setting the drags up to 'strike' - set at about 13-lbs. With the reel in gear, Bob pulled away from the fish in idle forward. I swung hard three times and felt the fish solid on the end of the line. At this point the swordie was about 200 yards off our stern and Bob took the boat out of gear. As the fish continued taking line straight off the stern I felt the line go slack then immediately taught again. My immediate thought was that possibly the fish had been wrapped somehow because of the way it fouled the line just before it ate the bait and now it had just come unwrapped.

Everything seemed OK, so we turned the boat around, I got on the bow and began to retrieve as much line as I could expecting the fish to bolt at any time. Surprisingly, the fish wasn't very shook up at all. It was still at the surface, and allowed us to drive right up to within about 15 yards of it before it tried to get away from the boat. Bob and Dave were now both on the bow with me with two fly-gaffs and a harness and rod belt. Rich took over the wheel.

The fish made a fairly long run of about 150 yards or so before it slowed down and we again drove up on it to retrieve line. It was still near the surface when we approached it and we could see that it was foul hooked in or near the ventral fin. When we got close enough to possibly get a shot at leader and gaff, the fish went down and away taking line again. We fought this swordfish like this for about  an hour and fifteen minutes. It would make strong shallow dives taking 100 to 150 yards of line. We would dead boat it to get scope and a flat angle on the fish to keep it near the surface and then drive up on it retrieving line. Each time we did this, we were thinking we were going to get a chance to gaff it - never happened! A couple of times the fish doubled back towards the stern and tried to go under the boat then made another shallow dive and ran away from the boat. The excitement level was just enough as far as I was concerned. Realizing that we weren't going to get a decent gaff shot at this "green" fish, we decided to move to the cockpit and let the fish fight the tackle and tire itself out a little.

The fish began making steeper down angle dives. I tried to put as much pressure on it as I felt safe in doing, as we had no idea how well it was hooked. Our main fear at this time was that we might pull the hooks if we pressed the issue too hard. We employed the exact same tactics from the cockpit as  we did on the bow by letting the fish run against the drags and a dead boat and then backed down on it to retrieve line. Repeating this process over and over, there were at least three occasions when we foolishly thought we had a chance to leader and gaff this fish. Bob actually had leader in hand three times but was afraid to pull too hard for fear of pulling those hooks. Dave never did get a clear shot with the gaff.

We finally decided to wear the fish down some more. At this time the fish started fighting us on steeper deep angles and eventually put its head down and went as deep as it could. I could feel it  getting weaker and noticedthat the tail beats weren't as strong or rapid. Every time the fish stopped kicking I attempted to gain line back not wanting to let it get too deep. Just before 3:00 PM, I could feel no movement from the fish. I assumed it had died or at least was unconscious and it was hanging straight down about 150 feet below the boat. I began to "short stroke" it and got it started towards the surface. Once it started coming up it wasn't difficult to make progress. When Bob finally saw color, I looked down in the water to see a white shape - obviously the fish was coming up belly first and dead.

All in all, I guess this one was meant to be. It ate the bait, the hooks pulled and stuck again, the fish died after only 2 hours. When I think of all the other things that could have happened and gone wrong, I guess all we can say is that it was our turn. For me this is the catch of a lifetime.

Steve Bledsoe