It has been a long time since I have had some success swording, especially since I have hardly been able to go in the last several months. It looked like there would be a weather window last night so at the last minute, decided to head out. What a run out, 1-2' 40mph the whole way. It was much nicer than I expected. Set up at 25.57/49.4 w/SE wind. Instead of drifting in it was a slight trickle out. At about 8:00pm, a large sword came tearing by the boat. He made a sharp U-turn and headed straight for us at ramming speed. He was chasing a tinker and I have never seen a tinker's tail move so fast. :biglaugh: He came right at the boat and slammed into the hydraglow, stopped, circled around and did some more laps around the light. We brought up the tip rod but he wasn't interested in the squid. He was every bit of 150, maybe bigger. There were 2-3 times that if I was ready I could have stuck him with a harpoon no problem. A couple of times he was so close I felt myself backing away from the gunnel. I have been swording for over 5 years and have never seen one in the lights like that. Everyone I know has seen them but for whatever reason I never did. It was one of the coolest things I have seen out there. After that excitement, we had drifted about 2 hours without a bite and were a little deep. Decided to make a move inside and setup at the 50.3. Todd put the tip rod out, set it in the holder and it doubled over. Smart thinking on the shallow move.
The fish never really got more than 200' away but was very stubborn. He did give us several jumps and head shakes inside of 50' which was pretty cool. We had him within range several times but just couldn't get a good shot at him. Finally got him close enough and stuck him, went 54" and real fat, probably about 80 or so. Headed in a 9:45. A great night on the water and Super bowl steaks locked up.
Sword Report 
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