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7-27-08

At least the 6’ rollers were gone for Rex and his group from Temple Texas, but it was still too rough to run hard. During the rough ride out I started getting an engine alarm from the port motor. I know the engines well enough I knew the onboard computer was briefly loosing the signal from the throttle position sensor. All I had to do was pull the throttle back briefly and it would re-set and quite the alarm. It was a pain in the rear, but at least we could go on. Once we got to our first stop the port engine died, with the rough conditions I just worked the boat with one engine until we had our limit of Red Snapper.

The water condition were terrible, the water was very green so we could not see the Red Snapper like we could on Saturday. The drift was fast with the wind and current, but we still got our limit pretty quick! During the hot snapper bite someone yelled Ling. I grabbed a rod and live bait before I had even got a good look at him, but once I seen him, I knew we had to get a hook in him. We have landed a number of nice Ling over the years, but 50lbs is about the best we’ve been able to do. This fish was huge, mid 60’s for sure. It had a head bigger than a 5 gallon bucket. Rex grabbed his spinner and pinned a live bait on it. He had it set up for a Ling. I was up on the side of the boat as a spotter once it turn down my offering with a wire leader. I got Rex on him and made a good cast and it was FISH ON! I had everyone clear the lines and I prepared to boat the fish. I got the gaff ready and had someone following with the bat. Some where about 20 minute mark his 20lb Big Game broke! During the fight his line (which was brand new) became twisted, I mean badly. It ruined about 30 feet of line and it was not from winding on the drag. The fish had made a lot of laps around the boat, but with him using light line he couldn’t horse him into gaff range. We assume it was twisted during the fight.

With our limit of nice Red Snapper in the box and our pride deeply injured from loosing the Ling. I started the port motor to see what was up with it. It was running rough and smoking, which it never does. I pulled the engine cover and found we had a broken belt on the air pump. Checked to make sure all the pulley and idlers were free, they were. So I carry a belt with and 5 minutes later we are off and running again!

Grouper and Amberjack were very elusive today. We caught more Red Snapper on huge cut baits and live bait intended for Amberjack. We ended up with a nice Blackfin tuna a very nice Amberjack, one Beeliner and a couple Kingfish. NO WEEDS today though! That was a big bummer because we see so many on Saturday.

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7-26-08

I (yes it just “I” Lucrecia was not ready to do the rough water) had Danny and his group of co-worker out and they wanted the usually suspects, so we ran out to a spot and they put a limit of Red Snapper in the box with most fish right at 23”, took longer to load the boat than it did to limit out on snapper. Two of the three largest took drift lines intended for Kingfish. None came from the bottom.

Next on the wanted list was Amberjack. Luckily the seas were starting to come down and we were out of the cross chop. As we were headed to deep water we found very nice weed line, so we invited a few Mahi to join the snapper in the box.

The Amberjack fishing has been some what slow but doable. First stop yielded a couple bites, but no solid hook-ups. Next stop one and the next spot filled out the limit. It was an odd AJ bite; we caught two on drift lines intended for Kingfish. Live bait was just not turning them on. We tried a few areas for Beeliners and Grouper, found none.

So we headed back to the weeds, put out a small spread and soon had a nice Wahoo hooked up, but it ran though the weeds. So he was towing a 2’ clump of weeds and I was having gaff issues. The plastic guard on the gaff had been pushed too far up on the shaft and was STUCK! I ended up tearing the whole thing off and got one shot at him, but he now too deep. Then the hook pulled! Seems I heard few dirty words fly out of my mouth right after that, confirmed by what is heard on the video they shot of the incident.

Back on the troll and we added a few more chickens before we rolled back to the dock.

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7-18-08

The start of a long weekend of fishing!

We took out my dad and Nephew Trey. With dad being 71 it’s pretty hard to catch a day to take him and I really wanted to get him and his grandson out offshore. I know I have some very special memories of my grandfather and I’m sure my nephew does now too.

The plan was pretty simple, get the “kid” a few good pulls and not beat my dad up with the ride out. Sea conditions were pretty decent so we had the ride part down. We were looking for Amberjack for the pull, but we only found that would cooperate. As luck would have it he was too short and the only pull down we had.

The weed patches were looking pretty good so we slow trolled one and found a nice school of better than average Dolphin. We also hit a deep water spot for Grouper, but didn’t find one home. While we were doing that I put a King rod for the boy…GUESS WHO shows up! Mr. Red Snapper and we limit out on Red Snapper with free-lined minnows in 150’ of water! 

Any way, we had a good mixed box early so ran in to get ready for Saturday.

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7-19-08

I had the core of Texas Oilman’s group out again. They were looking for a day of catching not fishing and was not too concerned who went into the box. I was headed to the “buoy” to make bait and just short of it we come up on a nice little weed line. I put out a spread of “glitter” and it was on! Dominic, didn’t want to be greedy so we moved on make bait and our next quarry. So we ran out a spot for Red Snapper first. Two drifts and we were done with solid snaps! The box had plenty of color in the box so we started looking for something big go with it.

The first bait down was greeted by a frisky AJ for Knut, yes that is his name, and he’s from Norway. The next bait was inhaled by very large Gray Snapper, and then bite fell off. It started to look like the AJ’s were going to be elusive again today. So we ran long east to a spot in 200+ feet of water. The amberjack there were very cooperative and limited out pretty quick. The endangered Red Snapper showed up again….in 200+ feet of water on a free lined cigar minnow meant for a Kingfish! It’s pretty bad when you can’t stay out of them in over 200 feet of water. The good thing was we didn’t have to vent him so get it back down.

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7-20-08

My sister wanted us to take out her, her two sons and two of their buddies Sunday. Three days in row are tough on the ole body even when it’s nice offshore, but we went. The two buddies have nearly never been out from under mommy’s skirt! They said it was only their second time to spend the night away from home

So not knowing how they would handle things we ran out to a close in spot to troll our “tubes” for a Barracuda. We had two strikes, but no hookups. We brought our snorkeling gear because Lucrecia and my nephew swam around the buoy some on Friday. We they wanted to do it some more. Seeing how we had dulled the senses of the 2 Barracudas that were hanging out there I let jump in for a bit. They were all impressed with the Barracudas and they seen one ling down deep, but he would even look at a bait. We also stopped at shrimp boat that was loaded porpoises. They said they could hear them “talking”.

Any way, we ran over to the spot and started catching Red Snapper at feverish pace. Lucrecia and I had to most of the hook-ups because the boys were a bite slow on the trigger, but they still had a blast. I put out a surface rod because had Ling around the boat, but got an instant hook-up with a Kingfish. Seeing how we had our Snapper the boys were ready to conquer their next specie of fish.  We had one break off missed two and landed one more before the Red Snapper found what we were doing and ended our King fishing. After releasing 4 snaps we called it an early day and headed in. We did check a couple of wed lines, but no one was home. There was tons of dead fish floating in the weeds though!

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6-21-08

I took out Danny and his crew. They have trying to get out for a while, but because of the weather we kept postponing the trips. We found some of everything except a Grouper and a legal Ling. We caught three, but none made the legal length.

The AJ bite was crazy; I normally have the rod baited and started down before they have their belt on. A nice AJ was on as I handed James the rod, new guys always get to go first, and he was very surprised as the AJ pulled him down onto the gunnels! It took us just few minutes to have our limit in the box, plus one upper 20’s” Red Snapper.

I have decided this year we would wait to fish for Red Snapper because of all the big ones we have been catching. They are eating Grouper, Amberjack and Kingfish baits better than the target specie. Today we caught most all of our limit before we dropped a bait intended for Red Snapper. We even tried to fish real shallow for Trigger Fish, but they came up were beating to Triggers to the bait! We tried to catch a few Grey Snapper too and managed a couple before the Red Snapper found out what we were doing and we got tired of C&R on big snapper.

Had some fun with Barracuda too, our lures we make were snatched up pretty quick on each pass up current the rigs. We had a couple clear the water at least 8 feet.

The Ling are every where; we just didn’t have the luck with on them. We caught three, but none were long enough. We even caught one from under a Turtle! We did loose one nice keeper at the boat before I could get a shot at him with the gaff.

We never found any weeds or dolphin so we headed in with a pretty full box just the same.

6-22-08

Robbie and his group from Dallas made their first trip for 2008 after missing their original date because of weather. These guys are “HARD CORE”…they leave Dallas Saturday night and drive to Sargent and sleep in their van until I wake them to load up. Then after a day “on the pond” drive back to Dallas!

The first stop for the day only yielded under size AJ so we moved on. The next stop the bite was on! They were not huge, but they were solid keepers and eager to jump on our baits. The north wind and southerly current made it a tough drift, so we had issues trying to get good bait presentation for Kingfish so we moved on.

We tormented the Cuda’s again with our little tubes. They won most of the battles on this day though we had 9 hook ups and only boated two. It was fun though, watching them “get air”.  

The Red Snapper were not as much a pain today as they were on Saturday…so far. We did loose more than our fair share of pulled hooks on our Kingfish. We had several pull just before gaff range, nice fish on top of that.

I tried my Grey Snapper spot, but the Red Snapper were to shallow and beat them to the baits…it’s long drive back to Dallas so we headed in.

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6-14-08

We slipped out for a short close in afternoon trip Saturday. We slowly bumped our way out; most of the swells had good duration between them. They were tall though. The water took on a nice dark green just before we reached our fist spot.

We hit three spots and all three had ling present. The first stop we hooked both that was there, but lost them both near the boat…one nice keeper and one we knew would have to go back anyway. The second stop we caught landed and boxed two. Lucrecia got her first for the year. The third stop we caught one, but it was very short.

We put a limit of snapper in the boat pretty easy even though we were only 15nmiles out. All were nice solid 19”ers that had heavy shoulders. I’m more used to seeing fish like this from the deeper water areas, normally the closer in spots have leaner shoulders.

6-15-08

Met Bobby and Brain early and took off into what we hopped would be 2’ers! They were out there, but most were hiding among the 4’ers. It was tighter and sloppier than Saturday afternoon, but we had hopes it would lie.

Stopped at the same rig we lost the two ling at Saturday to make bait. Lucrecia was ready in case they showed, they did and hooked the smaller one and I missed the keeper. I must have touched him with the hook because he disappeared not to be seen again….finished getting bait and went deep.

Brain wanted to “test” a few jigs and quickly found that the Barracuda’s loved them. We wanted AJ’s and none were home so we didn’t waste too much time there. The next AJ spot only had small fish on it. Lucrecia did hook up on bottom with a very large fish, but the hooks pulled about half way up. The next stop was void of life…the structure looked like an underwater ghost town. Made a short move to another spot very close by and it was loaded with life…I guess they were having a party and invited all the neighbors!

The AJ bite was on! We boxed our limit in no time 34” to 37”ers. I also seen what I thought was an Wahoo in the 80lb class and Lucrecia tried to put a hardtail in front of it, but the AJ bite was so hot they came up took the bait at boat side.

Lucrecia wanted to catch a grouper so off we go in search of one. We had not targeted snapper yet, but had several already in the 24” to 28” class. This will be a big problem when trying to catch grouper later in the year when snapper season closes. NMFS should know these big breeder size snapper will be dieing and wasted once the season closes…huge shame!

Any way Lucrecia got her grouper at our last stop. Not the monster she wanted, but she was pretty happy just the same. We tried to catch a few Kingfish on this spot too and we put three in the box before the Red Snapper came up and were beating the Kingfish to the bait! Yep! Free lined cigar minnows were being grabbed as fast as they hit the water…BY RED SNAPPER! We could have finished our limit of snapper, but we let them swim seeing how they were so shallow and flipper was not around. I wanted to tag some, but this a open water spot and they have no place to hide if we stressed them too much during the tagging process. We did tag and release 35” AJ…se be looking for him out there!

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5-10-08

Lucrecia and I had Dave, Dean and Trey out for a State Water red Snapper trip and the water conditions were not the best. The wave heights were not too bad, but they were close together. The water is warming, but the area we went to was off color and the current was running strong.

We manage a few Red Snapper and a Trigger fish, so the trip was not too bad for a half day run. Beats sitting around the house!

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2006

6-25-06

I had a Ronnie and his group from Dallas came to Sargent to catch some fish. Last year they got a taste of Barracuda and Amberjack fishing. So I was ready with a few tube lures and bait rigs. The hardtails were in short supply but I had made some tube lures the night before so we could at least chase one of the target specie.

Normally a Barracuda will tear up a tube lure the first time he hits it, but we were enjoying better than average action and the tubes were not being eaten up. Even the ones that “got away” provided us with some real entertainment. They had some “hang time” on some of their jumps.

With the lean live bait supply our Amberjack fishing suffered. We did box two for the two hardtails we had though. Just as the latter part of last year the bar jacks weren’t producing.

The real story though was while we were fishing for snapper on a wreck. I set a drift line for Kingfish that was taken almost instantly. I thought…possible Ling…maybe a Kingfish? Then it took to the air! A nice Dolphin about 35” in length, followed by a few dozen smaller buddies. We worked the school for a while and the bite played out. So we went back up to the wreck to made another drift. Almost the exact same thing happened, but the fish were a bit smaller.

During this drift one of the guys backlashed his reel. While he was picking it, out a fish picked up his bait. I told him to set the hook and let the fish pull out the backlash. The fish made a very strong showing once the backlash was out, much more than any Dolphin could and much better than most Kingfish could. When we had deep color you could tell it wasn’t a Kingfish nor a Wahoo…too short. Could it be….yes it was…a Blackfin Tuna!

After that we pretty much called it a day and we headed for the barn.

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6-24-06

My daughter and friends were in need of some offshore action, so we made a run while the weather was so nice. My daughter was the only one who had much time on the big pond of her crew. So the plan was to...just to catch some fish…anything would do.

Lucrecia of course wanted to do battle with some Amberjack.. After catching a few baits we ran long. I had Lucrecia show them how we did it. It wasn’t long before the frisky hardtail was grabbed by a 45lb class AJ and the fight was on! As hard as we tried we couldn’t put another keeper in the box.

Even with it being their first time out deep they listened well to my instructions when we started fishing for snapper. I told them to set the hook on any decent “jerk” they had and the Trigger Fish started coming aboard! Triggers are tough little devil to hook at times, but not for these guys. We made some adjustments and the Red Snapper started going into the box.

While they were doing the snapper thing, I set some drift lines for Kingfish. Which were a bit finicky by the time we started fishing for them…but we managed to box a few before everyone was totally worn out. Our drift lines also produced some of the better snapper of the day too…for those who are taking notes! LOL

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6-3-06

The original plan was to do an over night trip starting Friday night, but my crew couldn’t put it together. So plan “B” included long time friend Art and my fishing partner/wife Lucrecia going long on Saturday with Wahoo being the preferred fish we’d pursue. So the plan was set, we’d rise early and run long.

After long run we were at our first spot, we dropped 5 lines in the water. Lucrecia ask me what will we do if all 5 lines hooked up? Art spoke up first, “we’ll fight the fish on the rod with least amount of line left on it!” Not 10 minutes later the first rod goes off, then another and another! We’re hooked up on three rods and they all crisscrossing in the spread! I clear one outrigger line that was in the tangle, but we loose one fish. The other two go into the box. One is in the 70lb class the other maybe 40lbs. It is decided to not run more than 3 lines and they would all be hard baits, none in the outriggers.

We make a couple more passes without a hit, so Lucrecia makes an AJ drop on the spot. She hooks up after a bit of a long wait and we box a 25lb class Ling. We also made a few bottom drops for Red Snapper, but nothing was eating except 14”ers. That was pretty much the story for the day on snapper. We did box 11, two Lane Snapper and one Strawberry Grouper, but the snapper fishing was poor at best.

Anyway, back to the Wahoo. We moved to another area, lines out…bingo! Lucrecia puts another 40lb class “hoo” in the box. Then we start picking up Kingfish. We box 5 and released maybe that many more. Late in the morning Lucrecia puts another Wahoo in the boat that was her best of the day. It was pretty close to 45lbs. She was pretty much beat already and it wasn’t even noon yet. We kept her busy working the trolling rods and making our AJ drops.

While tied up to a rig out in deep water snapper fishing I hooked up on something HUGE! I was using an Ambassador 9000 with 50lb Power Pro and this fish was cleaning my clock! I passed the rod to Lucrecia so I could run the boat while Art un-hooked us from the rig. Even though we executed it pretty quickly but the reel was nearly empty. I had tightened the drag quite a bit before Lucrecia took the rod. She went to tighten too, but couldn’t because the star drag was too hot to touch! So off we went to get some line back. I chased it about a ¼ of a mile and we were right over it. Lucrecia ask if there was any kind of a rig down there that it could have gotten hung up on…no there wasn’t. I took the rod and started thumbing the spool to start raising the fish. Art called deep color and I took a quick look…probably a mistake. I guess I started putting more pressure on the fish thinking we’d won the battle and the line broke. The line parted up above the 150lb mono leader I using.

Art and Lucrecia thought it was a giant Wahoo from what they could see. It really fought like one. Right after I hooked it the fish came to the top and ran a long was just below the surface. Once we were close to it, it sounded. From the quick look I took I thought it might have been a Mako. The fish was bright silver with a colorful blue back. But we’ll never know for sure now. If it was a Wahoo, it would have to have been one well over 100lbs. This fish pulled way harder than the 70lber that we had in the box!

Even though the snapper fishing is very poor this year great time. Finial count; we had near limits on Kingfish and snapper, a limit of AJ’s, a nice Ling, plus a nice mix of other bottom fish. It was a great day on the big pond!

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5-29-06

The weather caused me to cancel trips for Sunday and Monday, but Lucrecia was pouting late Monday morning about not going fishing so I told her we would make a short run of some close in rigs if it weren’t too rough.

Well it was plenty rough, but it was better than watching her pout so we plugged on. The plan was to look for a wreck I’d had in my Loran C years ago, but hadn’t been to in years. Then hit the 14-mile rigs before we called it day. I thought we could catch a few Kings and box a few snapper as well.

I found the wreck after only looking for a few minutes and marked some fish, but we never lost a single bait!?!?!? As the day progressed none of the rigs we fish produced a single snapper! Not one…not even a 10”er…. we never seen the first snapper! Six rigs that have produced limit catches in past years not the first snapper. This is the second time this year I have made this loop with the same results!

Anyway, we did fine one hungry Kingfish that nearly spooled Lucrecia’s Kingfish rod, but she got her turned before we had to take chase! We had the hooks pull on a couple other smaller Kings and we boated a nice Spanish Mackerel to finish the day.

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5-25-06

Lucrecia and I took Bobby, Zach and his grandson Keton offshore to mainly target Amberjack. I also wanted to drag some hard baits for Wahoo while we were in deep water.

We started off at a spot where we had limited at earlier this month. The water was fine for Aj’s but not really blue like you’d want for Wahoo, but we put out the lures any way. On the first pass we had a good hook-up and Lucrecia turned over a big fish right behind the boat. I seen the flash and it was large! It was a shame it missed the hooks. The teeth marks it left on the lure were impressive. Bobby’s fish had taken a bunch of line and he was gathering it back when the hook pulled…the front hooks had straightened out!

 We were a bit bummed, but I was marking plenty of fish so we dropped a bait for an AJ. The bite was god but the fish small, so we moved on. We did the same drill at the next spot, but no hits while on the troll. Nor any on AJ bait. So we tried the spot for snapper. I had marked tons of fish, but none them had touched anything we had presented so far.

The snapper bite was slow at best. I drifted the main school of fish a number of times with poor results. Lucrecia wanted me to drift closer to the structure so I did. She almost immediately hooked up a big Red Snapper. It was a 29”er…nice! All preceding drifts didn’t yield a thing.

Our next spot had a nice school of AJ’s waiting for our live baits. They were right under the boat….maybe 20 feet. I free lined a bait on my spinner for the Ling that came up with the first AJ, with only 10 feet of line out a big AJ ate it before the Ling even knew it was in the water. With four nice fish in the box we moved on looking for a true monster AJ to finish our limit.

At our next stop, a good fish that ran off a bunch of line nailed one of our hard baits. I was considering going after it, but Zach got the fish turned, but he couldn’t close the deal! Lucrecia took over the rod and had the big Wahoo boat side in no time. I feel it was a 50lb class fish…. very nice!

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5-7-06

It’s been a while since my last report.

I took out Danny and his group last Sunday. They wanted to do battle with some Amberjacks so we started at a good early season spot. We the guys timing was off a bite and what little live bait I could get didn’t last long. We did manage to box 3 decent fish before our bait ran out. We also released two smaller units as well.

The Red Snapper did there best to elude us. The first two spots I checked didn’t yield a snapper. But the last one did! We got on a good bite of fish up to 22” and we put one nice Ling in the box.

The weed lines we hit had plenty of chicken Dolphin in them, well some of the Dolphin were chicks…they weren’t even chicken’s yet. We did how ever box two Dolphin that were both over 30”. They were real nice for this time of year!

Seas could have been better, but can’t they always be? The later it got the flatter it was, so the ride home was smooth and quick. The water temp is up too. My last trip out we never recorded a temp better than 71 degrees. Today we had readings as high as 78*.

2005

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6-18-05 and 6-19-05

The little women wanted to go fishing for her birthday, so we planned crews for both days this past weekend.

Her sister and brother were to go, but he canceled. So her sister Paula recruited her close friend and son to go. I had Bobby standing by already, so we were good to go!

Seas were a bit bumpy early, but it got nicer as the day went on. We ran in three to four foot seas that were closely stacked….choppy, but survivable! We had to make bait because the bait house was sold out when we got there and we had had to work for our baits….if they didn’t run into the rig…the Barracuda’s would eat them, sabiki and all!

Once we had our live baits we went in search of Amberjack. At the first stop they were home and the bite was ON! We went though our live bait pretty quick, but they wanted to do more of that…so back after bait we went.

I decided to hit a few snapper spots between bait stops and we boxed a few nice snapper. Once we had some more live bait we went back to the AJ fishing. After we ran out of bait again everyone was pretty much done. I wish I was able to tag some of the fish we released, but didn’t. I did tag 3 AJ’s Sunday though. One was 25”s, one 32”s and one was 37 3/4”s.

We finished the day with 7 nice Red Snapper, 7 Triggerfish and 6 AJ’s.

Sunday;

I wanted to run deep for some big AJ action. I invited a long time friend, Art, to accompany us on the long run. I also hopped to find a Wahoo and some Dolphin. We found some big AJ’s, we boxed two around 50lbs and one in the low 40’s. We also picked up a few nice Red Snapper on deep structure and ended up a couple short of our limit.

We trolled some hard bait’s for Wahoo around a fine looking weed line in 215’ foot of water, but only found one small school of dolphin. We put one in the boat, but they weren’t worth the effort to catch more.

I had one funny/odd thing happen at our last snapper spot. I brought up an under size snapper and I had some mono tangled up on my line. We were all fishing with Power Pro, so I knew it wasn’t one of us. I started hand lining the line in and I could tell it had a fish on it. There were two porpoises eating out throw backs and my fiancé had just asked about hooking one them. Well guess where the line went? Yep, one of the porpoises was attached to the other end! It tore out of there when the line came tight. If I had thought about it I would have put on some gloves and tried to break it off closer or get the hook to pull. But, as it was I wasn’t bare handing mono with a 6’ porpoise attached to the other end!

So we ended the day with a near limit of Red Snapper, one Lane Snapper, one Dolphin and a limit of AJ’s.

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6-3-05

We wanted to fish the Tuttles Tournament, but with the weather and a possible re-schedule of the 11th (Oilmans) we decided to pass....but the little women wanted to get some fishing in anyway so we tried to beat the wind on Friday. We made the trip, but didn't beat the wind!

We broke out the pass and tried to run 20knots, but it was a bit more of a beating than we wanted endure. I backed her off to 15kt and we bumped along. It took almost two hours to make where I wanted to go, but make we did.

The Amberjack were happy to see us...no live bait died of old age on this day! The little women got a lesson in "combat fishing"...with the rough conditions (4 to 6 feet with a tight duration) and the size of the AJ's it was hard to tell who was beat who up! LOL But as she kept saying "I got him in the box!" We (she caught them) tagged and released 4 nice AJ's two were 36" and two 31" plus we had a couple that were hooked a bit deep that I didn't tag....I didn't want to stress them any more than they already were. Any way my fiancé earned every bruise she got...she wears them proudly!

The snapper fishing pretty much sucked....every spot I fished was either loaded with trigger or the only snaps biting were 10" long. We ended up with a few B-Liners in the box but no legal red snaps. I think "On A Mission" jinked us...he told me their last trip didn't yield any either.

I still have yet to SEE a Dolphin....not even a little chicken! My fiancé did catch a 40" Ling off one nice mat of weeds.

We stopped at A-19 to see if any legal snaps were eating there, when the Bermuda Chubs showed up. She had never seen that many fish come up to the boat like that before and they were wanting to eat....so I set her up with a small hook and some squid....it was on from there! She was pretty funny to watch as the Chubs would suck the squid tentacle off the hook with out getting the hook....she did mange to land 4 of the little beasts before we moved on.

So we ended the day our limit of AJ's a couple B-liners, triggers and a nice Ling in the box. The seas finally backed off some about mid day too which was nice...not that 3 to 5 footer is really nice but it was better than the tight chop and tall seas earlier.
 

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5-21-05 and 5-22-05

I wasn't sure if we (my girl friend Lucercia, long time friend Joe and my self)
would try running long once I seen the chop with the west wind near shore Saturday noon time, but the further out we got the better the seas were so we pushed on toward Ocean America.

About 10nmile short of OA I spotted a group of birds working some surface activity so we dropped a spread in the water. What I thought was a "bait ball" turned out the be a 25' Whale Shark. It was a bit shy so we never could really get close enough for a picture. Any way we pick off two med size Blackfin and I go tried of chasing the thing around trying get it picture so we headed on.

Once we made the OA we did our fuel transfer in slick calm conditions....if it weren't for the "Beuno Vista" (I butchered the spelling on the name) wake there wouldn't have been a wave in site!

After we did the fuel we dropped our spread out.....just about the same time a weed line drifted though the area. There was no surface activity and I hate fighting the weeds, we decided to start making some drifts. As usual the current and wind (really light breeze) were opposite of each other and it never got any better during the night once the wind started blowing.

Once the sun started to set they came to the top. We could see a Yellowfin here and there free jump, but they were always a quarter to half mile out from the rig. The Blackfin were so aggressive they would start hitting the top water as soon as it hit the water. Most of the time I would be hooked up before I got the bail closed on my "coffee grinder". The Blackfin were a bit bigger than normal deep water rig Blackies and they were pounding jigs pretty good too. I wish sun set would have lasted longer, once the sun went down the top water bite slowed.

For the night I only had 5 or 6 blow-ups that were for sure Yellowfins and I never had one touched a hook. The only YFT that was hooked on top managed to cut the line on the lures hook (very clean cut off) when my girl friend was on the spinning rod working top water.

The jig/iron bite was about normal with the exception of some better BKFT being in the bunch. I stayed on top until we took a nap break at 11:30pm. I threw it again starting about 4am, but never had a YFT quality blow up so I went to iron too. It looked like we would have plenty of room for more BKFT so I went to the jig too to help fill the box.

The jig bite slowed right at first light so we threw out a spread a bite earlier than normal. We had a double knock down on the first pass, One BKFT and our first YFT (legal size, I C&R'd a bunch of little ones on top water) of the trip. Lucercia was jumped on the rod that was loosing the most line the fastest.....smart girl! Joe landed a nice BKFT while she landed the YFT. The second pass was also a double knock down, but both were BKFT. The third pass yielded yet another double and she manned the right rod again for her second YFT....ever! Two more passes only yield single small BKFTs so we headed in.

We picked up two legal Ling and a nice pair of AJ's on the way out while we were trying to catch some live bait. I had some croaker, but really wanted some Hardtails. I never did find any and we didn't loose a single one while tuna fishing, so I made one last stop to finish out our AJ limit.

Once he was in the box we found out I broke the starboard shift cable and it was still in reverse! I pulled the engine cover and managed to get it in forward gear and we were off for Sargent.

 

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5-15-05

What a nice day! I had the Tejas group out again.

Seas were nice, air temp was great, company was good....it just doesn't get much better than that!

We hit a few snapper spot and picked up a 6 man limit of snaps....triggers were a pain, but we made them pay for our trouble! We also found a few B-Liner too.

We picked up one nice size Barracuda while on the troll and lost two others. They really like those tube lures! Not much else caught or hit while trolling (not my preferred way to fish).

The AJ were not as cooperative as they were Tuesday, but we boxed one that was barely legal and we lost two hogs to pulled hooks. Live bait was a problem again....either too big (not normally an issue with AJ's) or too small (to easy for the little guys to eat). We C&R'd a bunch of under size AJ's too.

We had three nice Ling come up with a snapper they were taking turns trying to eat a 16" snapper. I never got a live bait in front of them before they left! I hate it when that happens!

Seen plenty of weeds but no dolphin?!?

No tagging done on this trip....having too much fun to bother! LOL

 

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5-10-05

It’s been a while since I have posted a report, but I plan to get back on the key board more now that the weather is finally starting to cooperate a bit.

As you can see from the 2005 Photo Gallery I’ve done a bit of bay fishing early this year and landed several Bull Black Drum during the month of March and early April, they were a nice bonus while we were catching Sheephead and Puppy Drum.

On the 4-24 trip I saw the most Ling offshore that I have ever seen. I would safely bet we seen almost 30 Ling that day. We landed 7, but there was not a keeper in the bunch. I did tag three and got good releases on them, so I hope to find out where and how big they got one day.

So….on 5-10-05 I took out Danny and his crew. The original plan was to fish for Snapper and then move in a fish for Ling. The seas were boarder line on being too rough so the plan was to stay in close. Danny wanted his brother to experience offshore Texas style!

We hit some rocks and one wreck to peck away at our 6 man limit of Red Snapper, a Lane Snapper and 7 Trigger Fish. With the calming seas we decided to run deeper for AJ’s instead of looking for Ling.

Seeing how fond AJ’s are in live bait I hit one rig to see if we could catch some. The first thing we see is a pair of Ling one 40lb class the other smaller, but not by a lot. We got one to hit a top water lure, but he ran into the rig and was cut off. The Danny’s dad hooks up on a fright train. It doesn’t take long before he too is cut off.

I rig up the largest rod I have with the only bait in the live well…I was wishing I had by big AJ rod, but seeing how we were going to chase Ling I didn’t see any need for it. The only bait we had was taken instantly! The AJ bite was so hot all the other fish around that rig had lock jaw. I was marking a plenty fish on the depth finder, but no takers.

There was another rig near the area we were at, so we made bait there. Any way the short of the long story was no bait last more then a few seconds. The guy actually complained (in jest) if a bait was down more than a few seconds before getting bit! It’s been a while since I late saw a wide open bite like that on AJ’s.

We ran in at 30 knots, so it was a nice ride  back in after the seas laid down.