{"id":1895,"date":"2025-06-05T23:54:53","date_gmt":"2025-06-05T23:54:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/?p=1895"},"modified":"2025-06-06T00:14:34","modified_gmt":"2025-06-06T00:14:34","slug":"billfish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/05\/billfish\/","title":{"rendered":"Billfish"},"content":{"rendered":"
I am at the end of two-week passage between Tahiti and Tonga and have essentially run out of fresh food. For the first time since I caught the mahi-mahi a day from Tahiti (which was a month ago), I dropped a line in the water this morning, shortly after I passed Niue and about two days from Tonga. Within an hour I had a strike. I knew it was something different in the way it fought. When I finally got it close to the boat, I realized it was a billfish. I immediately recalled what a sailing friend of mine said once \u2026 \u201cfish for what you want to catch \u2018cause you don\u2019t want to hook some big billfish.\u201d I had a big problem. I lost my gaff when I caught the bigeye tuna way back. I was able to get a blacktip shark aboard because I targeted a particularly small one. I got the big mahi-mahi by wearing it out and grabbing it by the gill. That\u2019s not something you want to do with a billfish. I will run out of wind tomorrow and I didn\u2019t want to take the time to stop the boat, so I ran a loop of rope down the fishing line and after a minute it was around the tail. I could then use the rope to drag the fish aboard more safely tail-first. It is almost seven feet long. I am not sure what species it is. Maybe a reader can leave a comment if they know. Or, I can look it up when I have the Internet. I prepared it by taking two fillets and skinning them before chopping them up into large steaks. Fish only generally last five days in my fridge, but I laid them against the cold plate in hopes they would freeze. I know what I will be eating the next week.
\n\"{CAPTION}\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"{CAPTION}\"<\/a>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am at the end of two-week passage between Tahiti and Tonga and have essentially run out of fresh food. For the first time since I caught the mahi-mahi a day from Tahiti (which was a month ago), I dropped a line in the water this morning, shortly after I passed Niue and about two … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Billfish”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1895\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}