teamwork... dont be afraid to ask or tell. Dont be offended when told or asked. If I happen to catch 3 and continue hooking up, I will handoff my rod to someone who is having trouble catching. If you lose the rod, you pay for the rod...lol.

Let the deckhands unhook the fish on a slack line(on the deck)... dont start pulling the lure trying to get them to work faster. Patience.

Bring Liquid Skin for cuts. I hope we don't have to use it, but we sure as heck were glad we had it this spring at Fourchon when one of our fishermen got cut over the eye. Even small cuts on the hands can be closed quickly with this stuff.

The only other safety comment I have is on the topic of knives. The deckhands will have knives for cutting bait that you can use...beyond that, if you need to have a knife for cutting spectra, please make it a folding knife rather than a blade in a sheath. It sucks when you have to cut the trip short because somebody got hurt.

-Pat

People,
Only large BF were tagged on the TBB trip, smaller ones were chunkbait or released. You don't want to waste freezer space on BF, sharks, barracudda or other trash fish.
Sabikis tipped with meat (squid worked best) will fill your live well. I reccomend that you save live bait for the grouper/AJ fishing then use it up the second night. A hundred and fifty baits don't last long when the BF are thick.
I'd suggest that you don't want to be caught with more than your limit of YF by a gamewarden, it gets very expensive very fast.
If your going to cast poppers stay at the freaking rail and cast, DO NOT STEP BACK and look behind yourself before casting.

Hey Walleye- Good suggestion!

Regular SuperGlue works well too!

I'm bringing a battery powered Black Light for us to charge our Luminous / Glow baits and jigs.

Black Lights super charge glow baits 10 times better than white light. Everyone that has glow baits is welcome to use my light. The light takes 6 Batteries so anyone with extra D cells bring them for this light please!

TooNah TooNah TooNah 36 and a Wake Up!!

Bazz

Bazz,

I called the lady at Elliots to ask about batteries. She says that she sells D-cells by the sea shore.

Slow day at the office...sorry.

Well Ha Ha Ha Pat!!

I bought it in the late 80's for night Bass fishing and discovered it works great for offshore baits that Glow.

Bazz

Good Point Snagged--- I would not want to be
driving away from the dock with 4 YFT. I suspect
they would throw the book at someone for that one.
MO

Bazz,

Back in "the day", I used to ice fish for walleye at night under three feet of ice with a couple feet of snow on top of that. You can imagine how dark it would be under all that ice and snow at night. Back then, I used phosphorescent jigs to catch those finicky walleye- I'd recharge the baits every few minutes. I am convinced that these glowing baits really make a difference!

More recently, I've noticed that the Williamson's jigs I've been using for tuna have phosph. decals that need recharging. I've never tried the black light for recharging...so I look forward to trying this. I'll bring some spare batteries. They're cheaper by the dozens at Walleyworld...added to my list.

-Pat

Pat- theres one color of the abyss ( ASJ150BLY ) that is blue/yellow. Its sardine basically except the WHOLE bottom is painted with glow.. instead of the decals. This particular jig is 150 grams, but they have the larger ones. That is my only concern with the other abyss jigs... the glow factor. I fixed my other ones with some glow spray paint. I taped them off and sprayed the bottom with blue glow paint.

I bought these smaller ones for blackfin and snapper/grouper/aj.

Bazz,


You forgot to mention.....


"never highstick your Chaos rod!..."





Bobby

Question? Last year the deck hands didnt bleed the black fin that folks wanted to keep. Sure makes for darker meat. So do we ask them to bleed em or do it ourselves?

theyll bleed em for you. or else if your concerned about it just ask em to do it...

Hey Yall

This is mostly for you first timers but it dont hurt to remind everyone.

Bring a couple of Trash Bags to put your Dirty Clothes in when you change them.

It will keep the rest of your clothes fresh and wont stink up the cabin.

Bazz

Hey Yall

I heard a lot of discussion on Topshots and Leader length.

I have read numerous times that most of the long range Captains out of California recomend a 75 to 100 ft wind on. Their reasoning is that when you have Color you want your splice connection on the reel.

You have one solid line between you and the fish...also the mono has extra shock absorbsion if the fish surges at the gaff.

I've been using about 100ft topshot on all of my rigs for a few years and have yet to loose a fish due to a break off. I have had the line cut on the hull, had hooks pull loose, and had the line chewed in two on an extended fight with a large fish.. but No Break Offs.

If you're not sure how long you want to go this is something to look at for peace of mind when your fish comes to gaff.

TooNah TooNah TooNah!!

Bazz