Went on a 52hr trip aboard the Big E and had a wonderful time; this was my first long range trip since May 2006 and I was feeling the DT's kicking in!! Started with some learning on the drive down; since I'm getting older, I decided to drive down the day before and stay at a decent motel for the night so as to avoid being exhausted before I even got on the boat. Set my cruise control at 60mph and got over 25mpg on my Explorer! On the return drive I tried 55mph ... didn't have to stop for fuel once on the way home & still have over 1/4 tank. Seems like I'll be the bonehead in the right hand lanes who's getting passed by everyone else from now on.
Anyways, boarding went well as we only had 32 passengers, and everyone was very pleasant - this is important in close quarters for 2+ days. Gorgeous weather for the entire time made this trip even better, although I must confess that I had the queasy feeling of almost seasick for the first day or so ... I'd made up my mind not to rely on meds this time & let my body work it out. On the run out, we stopped for red snapper at a few places - nothing exciting for me, as my whopping 4 fish limit were average 3-4# keepers. But, they're the first red snapper I've caught in over a year. Several different grouper species were boated - gag, scamp, warsaw, black - but I didn't get any of them
About 9:30pm we pulled to the Gunnison rig for tuna. The fishing was average, but still fun. I caught a couple small yellowfins and several blackfins before finally giving up to the 'urgent sleep' messages from my body. My most productive lure was a magnum rattletrap on light tackle - a converted Penn 500/Accurate reel w/30# line.
Saturday morning I woke up at 9am when the boat made it's first stop for bottom fishing that day; an oil rig in 400 feet of water. Within 15 minutes of waking, I was hooked into a stubborn amberjack that ultimately cut me off on the oil rig ... took one more breakoff before I remembered the neat thing about my TLD-50 ... that lever gives me more drag!! (I've only had my 2 speed lever drags for five years - you'd think by now I'd remember that, huh?). So, on the third drop, I moved the lever to about 60# of drag as soon as I'd gotten to 200 feet or so and immediately hooked into the biggest amberjack of my life! Time has a funny way of behaving when you're telling a big fish that you don't want it to go into the rig ... the fight really wasn't very long, but it was the longest, most intense few minutes I've had in quite awhile. Final dock weight of this fish was 54#, and it probably was close to 60 when it was first brought aboard (before gaffing & bleeding out...)
Caught another AJ of 41# before that rig slowed down ... good thing too, because my arms were already on fire. More stops at oil rigs produced more amberjacks and groupers for several fishermen. I had one grouper hookup on the bottom at one of these stops - again, 400 feet - but broke off in the rig *sigh*. Gives me something to look forward to later, right?
Midday we tried a few weedlines and it happened ... I CAUGHT MY FIRST WAHOO!!!!!!! (can you tell I'm excited?) Using the rattletrap & 30# casting rig, I was casting away from the weeds, since everyone else was casting towards them, and as the lure came into sight, I saw a silver flash slam into it, felt the hit and watched the fish streak away - the first run was over 100 yards of line!! ( I could tell because my braid was visible under the mono) After about 15 minutes I boated this gorgeous 38# fish! Got lots of exercise on this fish, as it ran me from the starboard aft corner all the way up to the bow, then back down the starboard side & around the stern to the portside before it finally gave up ... nothing in the world can compare to fighting a big fish like this on light gear. It seemed that the fish was so exhausted by the time it was gaffed that it had no energy left to thrash around on the deck ... nevertheless, I took a wide stance in the photo to avoid losing toes
One note on this fish - I got lucky. Very lucky - I was using straight mono tied to the rattletrap and the fish was hooked on the outer jaw. A fraction of an inch closer to those teeth and the line would've been sliced clean through ... after boating it, I put on a steel leader lol
A bit more rig fishing finished off the daylight & we went to the Auger (spelling?) rig for more tuna. I've never seen so many barracuda in one place at one time ... we had blackfin coming aboard with huge bites taken out of them. The bigger yellowfins came out this time, and a couple 90 pounders were landed. Mostly slow & steady fishing through the night, with sporadic flurries of big blackfin 30+ pounds, and saw one or two that had to be 40#; I've not seen so many big blackfin at one time before. Again, my best fishing was on the rattletrap & light gear. I did note that most of the bigger blackfin came on surface lures or freelined chunkbaits - most of the jig fish were smaller. Final count on YFT for the boat was 38, ranging from my little ones to those 90 pounders, with most being 50# or so.
At the dock, my total was:
2 small yellowfin (15-20#)
18 blackfin - biggest was 26#, most were about 10-15#
1 rainbow runner (my first one!)
2 amberjack of 54# & 41#
4 mediocre sized red snapper
and that gorgeous, magnificent WAHOO!
All told, I had over 400 pounds of fish ... not bad at all, especially considering the personal best AJ and first fish of two species! I'm sharing the AJ, blackfin & yellowfin with friends, but that wahoo is for me & my family hehe Now all I need is a tube of neosporin for my sliced, diced, cut-up hands and some bengay for all the achy muscles in my arms, back, etc ... lol
Awesome trip and well worth the money!
Previous Topic
Index