[Mako19]

Hit the water at 5:45 and was greeted with a beautifaul sunrise over a falt GOM. Made the 1hr 40 min run to the rig that we had success at last weekend.

First drop and my buddy is hooked up to something big. I eventually stick the gaff in a ~30lb lemon fish and his goes bat **** once on deck and slings blood EVERYWHERE!!! Bloody Decks!!!! Love it!


Out of 4 fisherman on the boat we each landed a nice ling along with a couple of bull croaker, 3 mangrove, and 1 red snapper.

The seas kicked up around 11:00 and we decided to leave them biting instead of getting stuck out there in some bad conditions. Made the long run in and finished cleaning the boat here in Broussard at 7:30. What a day!

The real story of the day was the fish that we did not land. We fish with the Penn reel and rod combo from Academy that most people use for snapper fishing. Well we have never been rig fishing before and not been able to land a fish because of our tackle. Well.....today was a first.

We hooked onto at a minimum of 10 fish that were hooked solid and fought for at least 5 minutes before either the fish taking all of our string (with drag at max) or breaking of liters or string (60 lb). We were adjusting our drag as necessary and there was no sign of the string rubbing on a rig leg. After all we were hooking these fish between 50' -100', Some of these fish we could turn and bring up to the boat but as soon as the fish would see the boat it would take off and break our tackle. We had our drag set but we had to tighten it up when the fish would head for the rig so that the fish wouldn't go into the rig and rub the string until it brekas. I was pulling with all I had and was not able to turn the head of these fish.All of these fish fought exactly like the ling that we landed fought. I do believe that it is time to upgrae our tackle. Any redommendations? Not trying to catch Marlin or tuna but a setup that will handle anything I hook up to while rig fishing.

Thank

We were in ~370' of water and getting bit HARD between 50' and 100' while dropping or retreiving bait.

We tore up A LOT of tackle and blodied the decks pretty good and had a wonderful day on the water. Coming home with 6 ziplock bags full of my new favoritre fish to eat (lemon fish) definitely was a bonus.

I was still whooped form last saturday but my dad wanted to go again so I figured if he wanted to go fishing for Father's day that is what he is gonna do. Rig Fishing is my Dad's favorite type of fishing and it was awesome to see him get so pumped up hooking up to those huge fish. Wouldn't trade today's memories for the world! Can't wait to go cook lunch for my dad tomorrow for father's day and reflect on the trip.

Is it common to have a spot that produces almost exclusively lemon fish? I thought one or two hung around a rig but I have never heard of anyone getting into them like this.

Hope the pics turn out ok.