A 135cm fish came through from Suruga Bay
While all of Taiwan had its eyes on the incoming typhoon, a friend in Japan sent through his result from a charter out of Numazu: a mahi-mahi measuring 135 centimetres, taken on a shore cast off the boat. Bright midday sun, calm blue water, the mountainous coastline of the Suruga Bay running behind him in the frame. Fair weather, flat sea — the opposite of what we were bracing for back home.
The fish is unmistakable. That blunt, high forehead marks it as a mature bull dorado, and the colours were still lit up — electric blue-green across the flank running down into yellow. Mahi-mahi lose that colour fast once they’re out of the water, so this one was fresh on the deck when the photo went out. A second angler is working a spinning rod in the background, which tells you the school was still around and worth staying on.
Summer pelagics, cast from the deck
Mahi-mahi (シイラ) are a summer fish through Japanese waters — fast, aggressive, and spectacular jumpers once hooked. Suruga Bay drops deep close to shore, and the charter boats out of Numazu run for exactly this kind of open-water predator through the warm months. A shore cast — casting a lure from the boat toward feeding fish rather than jigging vertically — is the way you take them when they’re up near the surface chasing bait. Mahi-mahi will often sit under a floating object or a bait ball, and once one boat fish hits, the rest of the school follows the hooked fish in. That’s why the second rod stays in the water.
At 135cm this is a serious bull — the size where the head is squared off and the fight turns into a series of long runs and head-shaking jumps. On a spinning setup that’s a fish that earns every metre of line.
Watching from afar
I wasn’t on the boat. I’d have liked to have been — a fish this size, in that weather, on that water. But there’s a particular pleasure in a result like this coming through from a friend on the other side of a storm system. Taiwan was buttoning down for wind and rain; Numazu was flat calm under a clear sky, and the fish were on.
Summer mahi-mahi runs don’t wait around. When the school shows and the weather holds, you fish it hard while it’s there — and you buy your friend a drink when he sends you a fish like this one.