SaltyCajun.com - Wild weekend

My weekend was scheduled to be a fun weekend by one of my buddies. I was going to participate in the second annual Neutria rat rodeo. He had it all planned. That never happened. Mike Jeffcoat needed a deck hand and no one could be found so my plans to partake in a neutra rat hunt was changed. I was up at 4:00 am and at the marina about 5:15. Once we met the customers we headed out for some offshore fishing. The troll for wahoo started off good with a hooter on rather quickly. Mike gaffed it and the fish flipped right off the gaff and at the same time it threw the hook on the trolling lure. As we set out again another hit but no hookup. 0 for 2 but they are here. Problem is other boats are also there and the hooters get wise to us very quickly. We run ahead of the pack and at this rig we find one.

http://www.ctfisherman.com/ubbthread...-51626-002.JPG

One more knockdown and the grass moved in and made it impossable to troll so we packed it in with 1 for 4. Off to get dirty on the lump. We were lucky to find the bonito quickly to reinforce our bait. As the day went we had plenty of action but we had 3 tuna throw the hooks. We even used our hooks as dehookers. We fought the fish for a long time only to have the line come in like this. You can just barely see it but the lower hook had already started rusting a lot.

http://www.ctfisherman.com/ubbthread...-51641-003.JPG

One Yellowfin around a hundred we lost as the customer allowed it to run high around the boat and get cut off in the motors before I could get the rod from him. The sharks were also on scene to provide excitement. 2 large hammerheads bothered us untill we hooked one and got it to realize he was not in a good spot. We did manage to pick at a few yellows and blacks for the day.

http://www.ctfisherman.com/ubbthread...-51643-004.JPG

At the end of the day with all our crazy unfortunate luck we had a hand full of fish to hang.

http://www.ctfisherman.com/ubbthread...-51644-006.JPG

I had to get ready for a trip the next day so I went home to get my boat and equipment to bring back to the marina. Once back at the marina the event I was to participate in was into drinking and party mode. I know many have never seen a Neutria rat rodio but this year was the second annual one here in Venice. There were a lot of female participants this year also.

http://www.ctfisherman.com/ubbthread...-51651-010.JPG

Around 200 rats bit the bullet. There is a bounty of $5.00 per tail. The money will be saved for setting up next year's rodeo. Last year there also were 5 hogs. This year only 4 of these guys came by to visit.

http://www.ctfisherman.com/ubbthread...-51665-012.JPG

We clean fish, ducks, pigs and Ya never know!

http://www.ctfisherman.com/ubbthread...-51667-011.JPG

The food was plentifull.

http://www.ctfisherman.com/ubbthread...-51669-014.JPG

As I was heading home around 10:00 at night the rat toss contest was getting under way. They had a male and female division. I could not stay because I had a morning trip.

This was a fixed price nearshore trip. The forecast was for bad weather in the afternoon so when I hit the gulf I tried to go an extra 14 miles out to find amberjack and wahoo before we settled in on bottom dunking. The grass was too much to attempt any trolling as you may see in the pictures. I did find some decent amberjack though.

http://www.ctfisherman.com/ubbthread...-51670-015.JPG

http://www.ctfisherman.com/ubbthread...-51671-017.JPG

First Tyler then his son Tommy.

http://www.ctfisherman.com/ubbthread...-51672-018.JPG

We then went back into East Bay and started picking away at the redfish. Check out the color on this one. We already had our limit so it went back to please somebody else in the future.

http://www.ctfisherman.com/ubbthread...-51673-028.JPG

We found many different types of fish today. Red snapper, croaker, white trout, redfish, amberjack, sheepshead, hard head catfish, and sail catfish, as well as our targeted lane snapper.

http://www.ctfisherman.com/ubbthread...-51674-025.JPG

Only got 5 hours sleep this weekend but it was very eventfull and rewarding.

Life is Good!
Fishing is not a matter of life or death. It's more important than that.

CAPT HOOP -- OUR FREEDOM