Ft. Lauderdale (offshore) 06-25-12

Bahamas Charter

June 3 - 16, 2012

The Lady Pamela crew had a thirteen day charter in the Bahamas with good friend Morgan. We started the trip on Saturday, fishing the KDW Classic in West Palm Beach. We had a good start to the week, as we landed over 60 fish, described in my last report.

The next day we left for our 260 mile run to Marsh Harbour in the Bahamas, to fish the Bahamas Billfish Championship. This is a four day blue marlin tournament held over the course of one week. Anglers can choose one lay day of the five days of the tournament.

On day one of the tournament I was working the cockpit, and we were fishing two dredges and six baits. While I was putting out the third bait a blue marlin ate the right long bait within the first minute of the tournament! Morgan fed the fish, hooked him briefly but then pulled him off twice. It happens. About an hour later we had a white marlin that ate the left short bait and we had him on, pulling drag like crazy. All of a sudden he just fell off. When we got the rig back to the boat it turns out that the darn tip of the hook broke off, releasing the fish. So much for our tournament!

We stayed for a couple of days after the tournament to dive for hog snappers and do a little deep-dropping. We spent most of our time fishing in front of Man-O-War Cay, moving between 650-1300 feet of water. We were fishing for big queen and yellow eye snappers, using electric reels, set up with a five hook rig above an 8 lb weight. Not many anglers deep-drop in this part of the Bahamas so the fish were big, plentiful, and aggressive. Queen snappers run 3-10 lbs and are very bright red with a long forked red tail. They are a cool-looking fish that are pretty tasty as well.

The Bahamas weather was fantastic for the entire trip, and in addition to the snappers, we ended up catching a blue marlin on the last day. That's a nice way to end the trip.

June 20, 2012

Today Chris, a friend of the family, and eight of his friends were on a Boy Scout retreat with their kids, so four of the fathers and four of the kids decided to come out fishing for an 8 hour charter. The weather in the morning didn't look the greatest, and a few of my other charters canceled so I was worried that they too would cancel. But they wanted to go, so the Lady Pamela III, with Captain Adam and Mate Joe onboard, had their bumpy day cut out for them.

They started the first six hours of the day trolling reef edge, catching one kingfish and ten mahi-mahi. That was a pretty good return for the morning. The group then tried some deep bottom fishing, catching a few gray tile fish in 350 feet of water. It had been such a good trip that Adam decided to try to catch Chris and his boys a monster fish.

They put out one of the big tile fish and a nice fresh half kingfish out on 80 lb tackle hoping for a big hookup. Just about an hour later Adam gunned the boat ahead to set the hook on a feisty hammerhead shark. Everybody on the boat had to take a turn at the rod to battle this beast. The kids in particular were crazy with excitement! They finally got the 6-7 foot hammerhead to the boat for some pictures and a release. Kingfish, mahi-mahi, tilefish and hammerheads; not a bad trip after all!

TIGHT LINES,