Alan chose to take a full day Mixed Fishing (part trolling for Marlin and part bottom fishing for dinner. We left Calheta Marina at 10.00 a.m. and trolled until 2.00 p.m. without success ourselves. However another boat about 200 metres away on our port side hooked up around 20 minutes from port and the result for him was a 750 lbs Blue Marlin (lucky sod, if only we were 30 seconds earlier it could have easily been us.

Still that’s fishing for you) We continued to troll towards Funchal inshore but to no avail and then set our return course further out and headed for Ponte do Pargo for bottom fishing. Still no take although we saw fins twice behind the spread. From 2.00p.m. until around 5.30 p.m. we bottom fished with shrimp bait on a 4/0 bait holder hook on 20 lbs line. After Alan had sufficient fish in the box for his family to enjoy a Bar-B-Que we adopted a total release policy and in all returned about 30 more fish to enjoy life and breed.

We also did a bit of slow jigging in 50 metres of water to a really rotten bottom and this resulted in a Red Snapper around 5 kgs. Between the 3 of us we also lost 4 good fish and the decision was made to use stronger hook lines in future electing to upgrade to 50 lbs line with a weaker lead line. All in al it was a great day out and Alan is currently trying to persuade his wife to let him go our again next Thursday for 1/2 day bottom fishing.