My customer and his girlfriend wanted yellowfin. We met at the dock at 6:00. The seas were forecasted to be 1-2 feet. We started out on the east cast netting bait. With 30 in the box I headed out. Addressing an electrical problem so depth finder not working well. 30 miles out and 2 weekenders on the rig attempting to do things that were not happening. Got fish finder working and could not mark anything. Did not waste time and ran to my destination rig. On my way there I stopped to watch a whale cruising around. There was 1 other boat at my targeted rig and he had 1 mahi. Neither of us were marking anything. While we were there he hooked up and landed a 60 pound yellowfin. Several drifts using various baits on 3 lines produced nothing for me. The customer then decides this is not happening and asked to get something else. With a 3 foot confused sea all day he did not have to ask twice.
I headed in to calmer waters and a rig in 300 feet of water. The water is still a nice blue here. Captain Scott shows up about the same time.
He tells me he found the Amberjack On the corner I am on. This is my second drop and still no bite. As he circles the rig looking for blackfin he calls me and lets me know the amberjack had moved to the opposite side since morning. I circle around to the down current side and on the first drop, about 10 seconds after we drop, the fight is on.
Thanks Captain Scott for the heads up. For some reason they were bunched up down current which made it easy to pull away from the rig.
After the pictures I go back and drop another bait down. As soon he stops the line the bait gets hit. This time we have an empty hook. Tie score. Fish 1 and boat 1. I pull up again and we have to wait almost a minute before we get a bite. This time we have what we think is a bit larger fish.
After a good fish fighting workout we have our second and last amberjack on board.
At this time we decide to drop down and see if any grouper are lurking. I was not set up for this so I took my 50W Penn with 130 Jerry Brown on, put on a deep drop rig, and got one of my 3 1/2 pound sinkers I make out of my center consul. I move to the up current side with no results. Go to the corner that the Jacks usually hang on and it does not take long before we come up with a nice snowy grouper. It took a few more drops before we had another fish on. A nice fat Bearded Brotula hits the deck. This fish is in the Cusk family and is very good eating.
You can see by the angle of the water that it was still a bit rough even in somewhat protected waters.
We made a quick, 10 minute, stop in state waters and headed in. We hit the dock a bit after 6:00. We ran a lot. I ended up coming in on the West side. I was lucky enough to put some meat in the box. It was a long day. The best thing was, With all my travels, I only burned 96 gallons of gas all day.
Life is Good!
Fishing is not a matter of life or death. It's more important than that.
CAPT HOOP -- OUR FREEDOM
05-11-2015, 06:46 AM
No Tuna
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