85 lb Wahoo

[BassBuddah]

Anglers trolling for dolphin off Fort Lauderdale got some big surprises Saturday morning.

Dave Wetzel caught an 85-pound wahoo fishing on Just One More with George Istvan, and Keith Bedford caught a 55-pound wahoo fishing with his uncle, Paul, on 60/40.

Istvan and Wetzel had run 10 miles offshore and didn't get a bite. They were on their way back to Port Everglades Inlet, about five miles offshore, when the wahoo hit a blue-and-while Ilander lure with a ballyhoo around 10:30 a.m.

"All of a sudden one of my outriggers started screaming and it just wouldn't stop," said Istvan, of Hollywood. "We had to chase him down. He almost spooled a 6/0.

"I kind of maybe thought it was a wahoo or a tuna, because it went straight down."

Wetzel fought the fish while Istvan drove the boat. Wetzel needed 45 minutes to land the wahoo using 50-pound line with a 150-pound monofilament leader.

Istvan gaffed the fish, got it into the boat and called it a day. He and Wetzel weighed the wahoo at Lauderdale Marina.

"It was the only fish we got," Istvan said, "but it was the only one we needed."

Before catching the 55-pounder, Bedford, 16, of Coconut Creek and his uncle had lost a 30- to 40-pound wahoo at the boat. The fish hit a downrigger line and Paul Bedford was hand-lining in the fish the final few feet when it took off, so he let go of the line and the wahoo got away.

They made up for that fish at 9:30 a.m. when the 55-pounder hit a trolled ballyhoo in 175 feet north of Port Everglades Inlet.

Bedford needed 25 minutes to land the wahoo using a 30-pound outfit. The fish, which also was weighed at Lauderdale Marina, was 56 inches long with a 23.25-inch girth

[BassBuddah]

Whale Spotted Off Gulf Coast

CLEARWATER, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35, Orlando) -- Fishing is a family tradition for the Peppes. On any given day, they're heading into the Gulf looking to catch some grouper or mackerel.
And they've got plenty of fish tales to tell.
"Jim here has caught a 200 pound Goliath grouper. So that was kind of exciting," said boat owner John Peppe.

Then there was the time his grandson C.J. spotted a great white shark while fishing near Tarpon Springs. But perhaps their greatest adventure yet was their whale sighting near Clearwater Beach.
It happened about 500 yards off Sand Key, just south of Clearwater Pass.

"I didn't know at first it was a whale, but once we got up to it there was a guy in another boat and he was screaming it was a whale, so we went up close, and it was big," C.J. said.
C.J. grabbed his camera and started taking video. The boat was alongside the whale as it emerged from the water, and then dove back in.
"We got close enough and it swam under the boat," John Peppe recalled. "A lot of people asked if we were frightened, but just the sight of it overcame all that."

Experts say it's not uncommon to see whales further out in the Gulf of Mexico. But what's very unusual is to see them so close to shore.
"I liked it because I never saw a whale," C.J. said of the close encounter. "And it was pretty cool to see how it acts and what it really does."
Whales generally prefer cooler, deeper waters, and the Peppes never expected to see one here. Fortunately for the family, they've got the pictures to back up their whale of a tale.

"The waters out here, you never know what you may find," said family friend James Hotchkiss who was there for the sighting. "I expect one day we'll find the Loch Ness monster out here instead of in Scotland."
The family says the whale they spotted was about 30 feet long. They sent pictures to the Clearwater Marine Aquarium to see if experts there can tell what kind of whale was.