Count your blessings, not your catches

Sometimes, it is easy to forget how lucky we are. For example, on June 27, my son, Elliott, and brother, David, went fishing offshore. Unfortunately, Brody, the amazing fish-finding and stock-trading dog, could not join us. He wanted to stay home to focus on trading stocks.
Thus, our trip got off to an inauspicious start. 
 
In the predawn darkness, we ran 60 miles offshore to target blue marlin. Without Brody to tell us exactly where the marlin were, we stopped on a slight temperature break in 400 feet of water. Elliott and David deployed a trolling spread of eight lures along with a couple of squid chain teasers. Then we settled into our normal trolling routine. Elliott and David watched the lures and I drove the boat. Sunrise is beautiful. But I barely noticed and failed to acknowledge how lucky I was to experience it.  
 
Hours passed. Not a single sighting or strike from a marlin. Thankfully, a wahoo and a couple of large mahi could not pass up our lures. Rather than feeling lucky to catch these fish, I focused on the no marlin aspect of our day. 
 
We were all kind of in a funk when it happened. A large marlin crashed one of our lures. Hooked up! The marlin pulled a 60-pound monofilament line off the Shimano Talica 50 reel at an alarming rate. We hooted and hollered each time it jumped. Unfortunately, several minutes into the fight the hook pulled. Rather than being happy about the exhilarating experience, I focused on losing the fish. We returned to trolling and several more hours passed. No more marlin or any other fish for that matter came to the boat.
 
Around 4 p.m., dejectedly I called it a day and set course for the long ride home. Normally, Elliott, David and I recount the trip on the ride back. 
 
On this day, there was no chatter or laughing. We each just stared off in the distance. Then I spotted an object. It looked like a life raft. Immediately, we adjusted the course to render assistance. As we neared the vessel, it became clear this was likely a refugee raft. 
 
We looked around in the unlikely case that survivors were nearby. I wondered how desperate these people must have been to put to sea in such an unseaworthy raft. It made me feel silly for feeling unlucky that day.
 
Elliott was taking pictures when David spotted a school of large mahi in the shade of the raft. For the next 30 minutes, we caught and released large mahi on almost every cast. The mahi attacked jigs, soft plastic lures and surface poppers. It was a totally epic bite. We were laughing and carrying on with each fish that we hooked. 
 
When the bite slowed down, we resumed our trip home. Our mood was much lighter. Elliott laughingly said we are super lucky guys. David and I agreed.
 
Contact Captain Greg Peralta at capgregp@gmail.com or call (843) 224-0099.

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Daniel Island, SC 29492 

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