Catching Wahoo on a Sailboat

by James M. Pierce
(Bradenton, FL USA)

We had departed from La Badie, Haiti for an overnight sail to Port Antonio, Jamaica. Shortly after breakfast the fishing lines we had been streaming snapped announcing we had a fish. We took in the Jib and headed into the wind to drop our speed from 5 Knots to nearly zero and we both pulled in whatever was on our line. When it first came aboard we thought it was a large Barracuda, but on closer inspection comparing it to a book we had on edible fish, we felt it was in fact a Wahoo! We weighed it and it topped 55lbs. I proceeded to cut it into 1.5 inch steaks while my wife scoured her coobooks to find what to do with it.

After I cut 17 individual steaks, my am was so tired I stopped and dropped the remains back in the sea. Our little freezer on a 47foot sailboat couldn't have held any more.

One of the cookbooks said to treat Wahoo steaks the same as any fine Filet Mignon ... grill it and add Béarnaise sauce, which is just what we did.

We have both felt that Wahoo is our favorite fish and whenever our favorite fish provider here in Bradenton, FL has it, we buy it. Unfortunately that is never more than once a year. Incidentally the 17 steaks lasted us to Panama with some still left when we got back to Bradenton.