Today was Tracy and Bob's last day in Madeira so we got an early start around 9:30. In Madeira the blues never really seem to bite before 10 in the morning. One of Jonboy's friends Terry Brennan flew in for a couple days to fish the World Cup with us. He had just finished a two month season in Cape Verde where they caught 134 blues in about 60 days of fishing. Terry came along to help out and in the event we would need a gaff man. We hung a hard right out of the harbor and ran up towards the point where we had been fishing the last few days.

Today was Bob's day to finally get in the chair and only two hours into the troll a blue exploded on my same hot lure a Polu Kai Instigator on the short rigger. The blue stayed on the surface as jonboy chased it down in reverse. Within ten minutes we were right on top of the fish. As we snuck up behind her she squirted out for a nice series of jumps. Jonboy stay right on top of her and managed to get me the leader. A couple pulls towards the boat and she took off again jumping. This fish was the perfect candidate for a photo shoot. Tracy Melton snapped off about 30 pictures of this fish jumping all over the ocean. After she had settle down from all of the jumping the leader pooped back up and this time I was able to settle her down along the side. After removing the hook and a few photos we let her go.

Bob Melton battles an estimated 450 lb. Blue from the chair.

We set our pattern back out and I changed out the long rigger tube for another large Polu Kai Instigator. The one on the short rigger was dominating so well I decided to put another one into the pattern. Only a few hours later a nice fish piled on the newly skirted Instigator and we were again fighting another big Madeira blue. This fish did some weird moves and made jonboy chase her all over the ocean. One thing she did right was stay on the surface and allow us to turn and chase her along the top. Only 15 minutes later she was at the back of the boat. A few switch backs and the leader came to the surface. I pulled her up the port side and she did one quick head shake and the hook came loose and slid up her bill until we were no longer connected to the fish. We guessed she was close to the 700 mark if not better. We were more than happy with the quick and easy release. We trolled around for a bit more but that was all she wrote for the Melton trip.

What a trip Tracy and his dad had with us. There's really only a few spots in the world where you can catch 5 blues over 500 pounds in what ended up being about 3 full days of fishing, not to mention 2 bigeyes over 200 pounds. Madeira is a definitely a special place.

Tracy Epstein

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