February 6, 2012 Mark and Mike Day 2

After the great day we had yesterday up on the Grounds we decided to leave early and do exactly the same thing – live bait.  Mark and Mike met me at the harbor at 6:15am and we blasted out before the sun peeked over the volcano.  On our first pass on the ledge we had a nice blue marlin about 200lbs eat the short rigger and come off.  UGH!  After watching the blue harass the bait without any real interest in eating it we went to the ledge and caught two live baits.  Again, we got bit pretty quick!  This time, Mike was first up.  He strapped in the chair and fought his blue marlin to the boat in about 15 minutes.  After taking a few pictures boatside, we safely released his estimated 180lb blue marlin.  Back to the ledge we went to get more baits.  Mike and Mark did an amazing job catching these fragile baits without ripping their jaws off or killing them.  We baited two more baits and headed off the ledge.  It took a little longer this time but we hooked up again to another blue marlin.  Mark was up and got into the chair.  His blue took out a lot of line right off the bite and we chased it hard with the boat.  He fought his second blue marlin of the trip in under 25 minutes.  We estimated his blue at 190lbs!  Unfortunately, this would be the last trip of their vacation on the Lepika.  As I am writing this, I had to cancel their third day due to 25 knot winds.