Our long time friend, Max Puyanic, has been fishing with me on the L&H for the last fifteen years. Some years he fishes once a month and some years more than that, so needless to say Max and I have caught A LOT of fish together! On this day, everything went our way, starting with the bait fishing. I found a big school of bait and when Jim threw the net, it was so full he could hardly get it in the boat. There was a small boat fishing and he was not catching any bait, so I pulled over to him and the boys gave him two buckets full of live bait and we were on our way. The L&H crew always tries to be nice and help others whenever we can as we would like others to treat us the same! After our good deed for the day we started running to the south. The conditions were perfect and I was very excited about our chances. As soon as the very first bait went out it was eaten! There was a school of ravenous kingfish behind the L&H and in seconds everyone was hooked up. There were rods bending all over and we had more fish on than fishermen. Max got the biggest one, a forty pounder and as we were pulling in the last one (to give us our limit) I saw a sailfish free jumping several hundred yards away. "Back the drag off!!!!" I yelled as I raced the L&H toward the free jumping sail. When I got close to the spot where the sail last jumped I could not believe what I was looking at. A pack of at least ten sailfish were tailing down sea! I was so excited, I started screaming "Ten Fish, Ten Fish!!!" and Jim and Trav started casting baits! Seconds later we had eight fish on and even though I could see more sails I had to tell the boys not to hook any more. With only two anglers and two mates, eight fish was more than we could handle. Some sails got away and we released a few and a couple fish turned out to be those pesky kings that had beat the sail to the bait. Nevertheless it was very early in the day and we had already secured our limit of kingfish and a few sail releases. I ran to the south and put the baits back out and we got three nice dolphin. I was fishing out deeper because I didn't want to waste all our baits on those kings. After a while with no bites, I knew the sails were in shallow and that is where we needed to be. Right away we started getting some sails and kings. Everyone stayed busy releasing sails and kings and finally around mid day the kings stopped biting. The sails continued tailing down sea and we kept hooking them. Just after lunch time, Max released the fifteenth sailfish of the day! We fished a three mile area all day and just kept running back to the same spot. The ocean was alive as I saw a giant bluefin tuna tailing and we had a 150 pound plus yellowfin tail by both short baits with out eating. By early afternoon we had released twenty-three sailfish and were almost out of bait! As we put out the last four baits we had I remembered the two buckets full of bait we gave away in the morning. It was ok, as I was sure the guy on the small boat was happy and catching fish as well. We soon hooked a double on our last set and headed for home! The L&H came backing into the slip with two riggers full of flags and a box full of kingfish and mahi's! Max was so excited and I was happy for him. He is a great friend and client and he was rewarded for his loyalty and persistence with his best day ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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