I am taking applications for a regular deckie.  The current one has abused his privileges twice now and is now under probation. 

The first time he abused it, was the first time I took him out.  I let him off the hook then as he didn't know better. 

I told him "We were going to the FADs, it's the end of the season, the Mahi are big - 120-130cm - bring appropriate gear."  As most of you know, I am usually a school hours fisherman, I do the school run, go fish, wash the boat and gear, then have to pick the kids up again, so my fishing window is some what limited and if I am heading out to the FADs, I usually have no more then 1 1/2 hrs out there due to travel time.  So what does he do?  He has the cheek to sneak on, a gazillion piece, 9 foot travel toothpic rod and a reel spooled with 6lb line.  Lucky for me I hooked up and boated my fish first.

I then set the boat and bite up for him to have a go.  As planned, he hooks up and spends the next 45-50min kidding himself that his 9foot travel toothpic would get the job done.  I end up having to chase the fish from Hillary's FAD to the Furuno  FAD to prevent him from being spooled several times, then he has the gaul to break his rod, loose the fish and make me late getting the kids from school.

After that, I told him, minimum test is 15lb if he wants to fish with me.

Well, today we went for a fish again.  When we were loading the boat, I noticed in addition to his two rods that he normally fishes with in the metro area, he had an additional rod bag - when questioned, he muttered something about a spare rod and I let it go as that.  Anyway, the bottom fishing was crap, so we decide to troll abit to see if there were any tuna around.  We were just chatting when my ratchet started screaming - "Fish On!"  I kept the motor in gear and we both picked up a couple of SBTs.  We set up the troll again and I notice that he is fiddling with his outfit, he kept mumbling something about changing gear and I just took it he had some gear issues.

Anyway, we hook up again and I got my fish to the boat quick smart, turned around and noticed that there was this  look of sheer panic on his face, then he said - "I am down to backing."  I jumped up leaving my rod and fish on the deck, got the boat in gear, turned around maintaining some angle on the fish and the chase was on.  It must have been a monster, the fish kept taking line, we kept chasing and managed to eventually get some line back.

At this point, I need to highlight something that has been happening recently, the following pictures show how he has been hooking fish.



and another couple





As we all know this type of hookup usually produces blistering, unstoppable runs.



I asked "what's taking you so long?" and he mumbles something about 6lb test!  It is at this stage, that I notice the bamboo skewer that he was trying to pass off as a rod and this tiny egg beater that he was using.

After about 40 min we finally get to see the fish and "Guess what?" 



Yup, you guessed it. 

The Jagg Master does it again.  From the pictures you can see that he is able to jagg bottom fish, mid water fish and even surface fish while trolling!!!

By the time we landed the fish, I was late getting the kids again.

Will consider all applications.