Had a nice trip on Friday, July 3rd. Caught some snappers and one amberjack before putting the baits out to troll. The mid day bite has seemed to slow up considerably but we lucked into a thirty pound dolphin or so right off the bat. The next four hours went by pretty slowly with one decent knockdown. Most of the crew had just about retired for a nice afternoon nap when we got a solid short rigger hook-up. We proceeded to lose more than half our line on a 50W in less than a minute and by the time we got the lines cleared we got two good jumps out of a large blue marlin before he pulled the hook. Oddly enough the lure seemed unscathed so I’m not sure if it was a foul-hook or what. Overnight squalls on Independence day turned our 1-3 forecast into a rather gnarly 3-5 chop and we had to turn around for the first time ever as we had lost half the crew to sea-sickness. Stay tuned for reports this weekend….weather ‘looks’ good. PY