After a questionable weather weekend that kept "Tighthole" on the trailer, we had a perfect window of weather I could not pass up on Tuesday. Thanks to a great employer, I was given the green light to skip work and take two brothers in blue for their first offshore trip, along with my youngest and a friend of his. As usual, I was late getting home Monday and retired to bed without finishing my tackle rig ups and once over through the gear. That would cost me later in big catches. As expected, we launch in Pecan Island and hit the gulf to find slick seas, running the 50 miles out at 37mph. Our first stop was at a place I like to put a few hard tails in the live well, but to my surprise, the hardtails were huge - like "too big for what I need huge". About the time I decide to haul out, I see two ling approaching my boat, and quickly grab a rod rigged for just this occassion. 30 seconds later we are hooked up to a 20lb ling and I hand the rod to my partner in blue for his first fight. After 10 mins, he gets a little over excited and snaps the rod half way up. This rod was rigged with 60lb Power-Pro and a 2' section of 80lb flurocarbon leader, and it held up and we were able to land the fish. From there we went to my snapper spot, and immediately turned on the after burners. Last year I stated I have never seen snapper fishing any better......well, it got better. My son hooked up on a monster almost pulling him and his rod overboard, and after a few minutes of fighting the fish, the school appears in the 80' water and stays about 15' below the boat. We limited on 10 snapper in less than an hour, doing catch and release to get quality. Of the 10 snapper we had, 6 were over 15lbs, with 2 over 18lbs. Top that off with a close encounter with a 4' mahi mahi, and another ling. It's not even 10am and our box had to be repacked to close it, which is a 150 qt Igloo. So I passed some grass lines on the way out and decide to hit them looking for what ever was underneath. Had one grass line aroudn 8 miles from the snapper hole, so we dragged for a while only getting one King, but the sharks were everywhere - all day! Following that grass line, I decide to head in closer in search of Tripletail. On the way in, we see a bait ball getting hammered by what I thought was skip jacks. So, I decide to let them have some fun with speck rods catching the jacks and ease the trolling motor down and getting close. As we approach the school, it has two huge ling in the mix of skip jacks and then we go into overdrive. I grab a Clacutta 400 rigged with a jig, and my kid throws a large spin cast with a swimming eel. The fish come right to us and are literally sticking out of the water after following our baits, and miss the hookup on multiple over aggressive strikes, like they were trying to kill it before eating it. These two ling were huge, in the 50-60 range and looked like you could put a saddle across the backs! As I turn to reposition for another attempt, I see my rookie fisherman in the back of the boat with his speck rod, and you guessed it, he hooks the larger of the 2 ling. From there, it was a chase to keep line on the reel as the fish decides he doesn't like the 1/4oz jig head in the corner of his mouth with 12lb test coming across his back. We were spooled twice over the next 20 minutes and for some reason, I was thinking we may have a chance at a record for line class or something as if we were going to make it happen! Little did I know, as I am working the boat to get line, the drag of the reel was tightened and the next run breaks the rod and the line snaps a split second later. Oh well, it was fun! On our way in we get to another bait ball getting pounded and stop only to see this pile of fish is sharks, and I'm talking "don't fall overboard" size sharks in a feeding frenzy. Incredible show for the guys that we don't get to see very often in our area of the Gulf. We had bull sharks and spinner sharks and it was fun to watch, and of course we lost more tackle to them. I decide to head to the grass line that was closest to the beach for triptail since the sun was high overhead and it was slicking out which makes them easy to see. After getting to that grass line, and running for 5 minutes down it, we spot another nice ling. Yep, rod #3! - It was now 1pm and after another 30 minutes w/o one triptail in sight we called it a day since the sun was kicking backside. When it was all said in done, we saw 4 nice ling 8 miles from the beach, only getting 2 in the boat for the entire day. Great times and calm seas - and I got to spend it with some guys who sacrifice alot to keep us safe as well as two young boys that were full of smiles.
06-05-2013, 09:17 AM
1st snapper of the year
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