All Smiles Upon Him!

At 71, Pete P. "Slow" Reyes, has rejuvenated his passion for deep sea fishing. He does not necessarily just want a leisure style fishing trip, but that of the hard-core 12-18 hours trip deal. He is one tough dude!

For several weeks of taking him out on the "My Boni", a 19.5' Glass Pro, out into the deep blue Marianas pond.  He set his goal on catching his Onaga. Not just any Onaga, but a prize winning 30+ lber. is what he desires. We tried numerous spots that I know off and some that were given to me by master fishermen on Saipan such as George Moses, Judge Alex Castro, Diego Benavente and Judge Perry Inos. 

Our luck on those coordinates did not provide well for us. We caught fish, however not the ultimate Onaga he wanted. This past Sunday, November 12, 2017, Slow organized a trip to bring another master fishermen for deep drop fishing. Mr. Lino Tenorio, known for his "target fishing" tactics was on board for a few hours to show, teach, and provide a few coordinates that would bring us the catch.

Lino knew what we wanted and brought us to his spots that other fishermen ask him for. Sorry guys, this is the secret that I cannot share as Lino requested we keep it that way.

As we arrived about 3 miles out on the westerly waters off Saipan, we took our first drop. Lino on the Electra-mate 940 with a 12/0 reel and 200lbs. of braided line that goes up to 3K feet, I was certain we could haul up something worthwhile.  Within the first 5 minutes after reaching bottom with the use of # 1 rebar cut at a length of 14" to reach the bottom took about 4 minutes at a depth of 590-650 feet.

My Garmin 7DV Striker was adjusted at 77 megahertz to read the depth at an instance. Immediately you see the fish finder go to work...bleep- bleep- bleep... fish were all around at the bottom anywhere at depths of 5'-40'.

Pete P. "Slow" Reyes

Within the time frame of 5 minutes or possibly less, Lino feels a tug. He gestures "oooh, yeah, come-on!" then again another tug and immediately, he lets go of the line on his hands and turns on the reel. The 940 Eletra-mate starts winding. Its noise piercing while it winds that you could not hear yourself speak. You had to raise your tone to higher decibels to even hear yourself. We see the rod bend, then shake and then bend even more as the fish fought its way at the bottom hooked on the rigs. In a few minutes of winding up, the fish emerges. A silvermouth penetrates the surface. Slow picks up the fish and all smiles were upon him.

At the time of winding, Lino gave up the reel for Slow to carry on. We watched as he fished and realized we were doing this wrong. While we have the equipment, we saw our mistakes from the master of deep drop fishing.  It was our time to ask questions. It was a time to learn the skills that he beset upon us. He made it look easy, but he kept reminding us to be patient. This type of target-fishing he does was mastered after years of trial and error and he is giving us a crash course of deep-drop 401 on the mastery science and skipping all other pre-requisite learning courses. I know I am grateful!