CaptainRickyWheeler

Here is a video of the fast paced action aboard Exile 65 this past April during the White Marlin Smackdown Fishing Tournament in Hawk’s Nest Marina located in Cat Island, Bahamas. Be sure to watch in HD!

Last week I slipped down to Trinidad to get the 45 Hatters Exile back into shape and hopefully ready for a sale or for more fishing in the Southern Caribbean. I was lucky enough to sneak out for tarpon twice, and the tarpon fishing in Trinidad is absolutely incredible. We released quite a few on artificials along with some jacks and one morning we slipped out with Jonathan De La Rosa of MonstaTarpon.com (check em out) and we released 16 tarpon up to 80 pounds on live bait in 4 hours. The 16th release on the trip was their 1700th release of the season! 

We fished the Mid Atlantic this year on Exile65 out of the Canyon Club in Cape May. Fishing has remained slower overall but we were hoping to get some action on a couple of the right fish this week.

Day 1: we ran to the Tom’s Canyon and got into a blue marlin around 300 lbs right away. Jody did great work getting the release and the blue gave us an awesome show from the bite to the fight to the release. Mid day was super slow! We picked up and ran into the 100 fathom line and lucked out on a yellowfin tuna that we weighed in at 58 lbs. we also got to see the eclipse pretty well on the water today which is something I know I’ll never forget!

Day 2: we made the run way offshore to the water located in 1500 fathoms behind the Wilmington canyon. Overall we had a very slow day only being able to find a couple smalll mahi. Later in the day we got our bite and we’re on a solid tuna thatvwe fought for just over an hour and unfortunately pulled the hook. We sprinted back up to where we had the bite and licked out on another one that Richard got boatside quickly. And we headed to the scales for the second day in a row but again fell a little short on weight. 

Day 3: some quality fish were killed where we fished on day 2 so we ran right back to it. We picked at some mahi throughout the day and ended up 1/2 on white marlin but overall disappointing day for us as well as many others. 

We had great weather all week and good times as always. Thanks to Mary, Charlie, Jody, Richard, Justin, Casey, and Frank for fishing with me, Joe, and Eric! Hoping we can do it again soon!

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We ran a long overnighter for the Ocean City, NJ Overnight Tournament. We started back in the SW corner of the Lindy and had a white up on the teaser right away that didn’t switch. BUMMER! The rest of the day was soooo awfully slow. We dropped for tilefish for a bit just to break up the day, then we worked up into the Carteret, into the deep, back to the edge, then ran up to the Carteret again to try and snag a tuna at dark with no success. We drifted all night for swordfish and not a touch allll night. We worked our was inshore looking for a qualifying dolphin, wahoo, and tuna. We managed to pick at some dolphin and caught 2 qualifiers which for now have us in the money. We got smoked on the down rid and we thought for sure we had out wahoo on but it turned out to be a 4′ mako which we released. We saw a blue marlin tailing on the surface that never ate and that was it. VERY tough trip! Not what we had hoped for at all.

Due to A LOT of rain an thunderstorms throughout the area Saturday we postponed to Sunday. We went out in search of marlin and whatever else would decide to bite. We started fishing in the Spencer Canyon and we had a lot of life, pilot whales everywhere, plenty of birds, and great bait marks, BUT no fish. We worked the area hard but never could get a bite so we worked up to the Lidenkohl Canyon. Once we got into the SW corner we found a barrel floating that held a few mahi that we picked up. Then shortly after we hooked into a white marlin on the left long. Mary was on for her first white marlin! After a few jumps and a solid fight, Mary did awesome at getting the fish boatside for a clean release.

We worked the canyon some more without much luck and decided to end the day catching some tilefish. As we were picking up we had a white pile on the right flat line and we got a quick release on the white. Nice bonus fish, haha! We dropped for blue line tilefish for an hour to add some meat to the box and called it a day.

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Well we didn’t get anything quite big enough to take to the scales but we ended the White Marlin Open with a solid final day of fishing releasing three white marlin and a spearfish. Joe and I wanted to thank our WMO crew of Bob, Nick, Keith, Stephen, William, Pete, and Phillip for fishing with us. We can’t wait to do it again! Keith did get three of the whites today so we are curious to see where he lands in the angler category as well as where Exile 65 ends up with the release category. Tough fishing this tournament but we managed to get some everyday and had a lot of fun doing it!