EN GARDE: DAYTIME SWORD FIGHTS IN THE MID-ATLANTIC

THE FIRST TIME THAT charter captain Mark Hoos took customers on a daytime swordfish trip aboard his 58-foot custom Carolina, Marli, out of Ocean City, Maryland, in fall 2018, they hooked a 424-pounder four minutes into the first drift and boated it. On subsequent trips, Marli’s crew averaged eight sword bites a day—and caught some bigeye tuna along with them.

“It’s been an untapped fishery,” Hoos says of the daytime swordfishing in his local waters. “It has definitely extended our season. Usually our offshore action peters out in October, but now we’re fishing through Thanksgiving.”

That same scenario is repeating all along the mid- and southern Atlantic coasts, from Maryland to Virginia Beach, Virginia, down through the Carolinas and northern Florida. While dropping baits to the bottom at high noon to catch swordfish was unthinkable 20 years ago, the North Atlantic stock of these world-traveling predators has been rebuilt under careful US and international management. With so many more fish available, the South Florida debut of day-dropping more