West Coast Long-Range

June 20th, 2008

Below is Capt. Rich’s report from the 4 Day Pelagic Trip… photos follow!

The much anticipated 4 day pelagic / deepwater trip departed about 30 minutes early, as everybody stowed there gear and started familiarizing themselves with there new home for the next 4 days. As we were motoring down the channel I checked and rechecked all the gauges, navigation lights, instruments and the satellite shots of the offshore eddy’s and currents feeling pretty good about an area I plotted out the course, 155 nm WSW. I was real happy with that distance because on the last 4-day trip we had to steam over 200 miles to find the water break that I felt good about. With Fuel at $4.75 per gallon this year distance is a big factor whether we like it or not it. Once we cleared the last channel marker and were in open water I turned the Gulf star on course on started thinking about some stops along the way to break up the ride. The words RED SNAPPER jumped into my mind, yeah let’s chase some red snapper for an hour or so.

I asked second Captain George to go talk to the Passengers to see if they wanted to do the same the vote came back instantly YEAH! After altering course a bit, I looked back to the cockpit and saw the anglers anxiously rigging for Red Snapper. Five hours later I eased the throttles back and started searching the area for those tasty Red Snapper. As we circled around one more time a called over the PA system get ready guys where going to make a drift here. It was not long before the words FISH ON were being muttered. The fishing was not fast and furious but steady we only had to make two drifts to catch a bunch of Red Snapper, two Mangrove and two Lane Snapper. Knowing that we still have a lot of miles to cover before the morning sun would rise we agreed it was time to move on and get offshore.

Getting close, I observed the sea surface temp gauge fluttering back and fourth indicating the breaks were getting closer. The Sun was just starting to rise over the horizon and it was lines out. The First fish was a real nice Wahoo about 50 lbs and not too long after was a couple Dorado (dolphin fish) or as PGF says mi-mi’s. Wow great start right? Well it went down hill in a hurry because we had only a couple of mystery bites for the rest of the day. The water just flattened out and the breaks were gone. After searching all day we gave up, switched gears and tried some deep dropping for Grouper and Snapper that too was slow. We managed a few small to medium sized grouper but nothing we had anticipated.  With the Sun getting low we started thinking SWORDFISH maybe we can change our luck with some awesome swords. We steamed Two hours after sun down while every body had dinner, Marking bait and a Thermo-cline on the bottom machine we throttled back, started chumming put the colored sword lights in the water and started fishing. Nothing, Nothing, Nothing all night long.

The morning came with bruised egos and a new hope of mayhem on deck as we started trolling again. The water moved and it moved fast, we were in search mode looking for the temp break. My gut feeling was telling me to go north but the satellite shot was telling me west. After about an hour of talking to myself, we were trolling northwest, scanning the horizon through binoculars searching for weeds, trash, and a convergence zone anything that might hold fish. After 60 miles finally some surface action a few weeds and small temp changes we get a bite a barracuda, we see a dorsal fin up ahead, a Sailfish then another, no bites…. We drilled the area for 2 hours, this is turning into a captains nightmare, Now fed up with my split personality’s compromise I turned Northeast and went with my original gut feeling asking myself what was I thinking when I decided to go north west, at this point I felt lost with no plan to find my way. I know, stop drinking so much coffee and get a nap and sleep on it. Captain George has the helm now he mutters something and starts searching through his gear digging around he pokes himself a few times, hooks, knives, bladder deflators. “I Got 'em” There his ultra bionic polyball seeing, trash spotting, weed whacking green Costa Del Mar prescription sunglasses. “There’s no Hidin' now fishes”. That’s not really what he said but I’m trying to keep it clean here, you know for the kids. After about two hrs the engines slow down and wake up to a large Mi-MI dancing on the surface. We both agree that we need to drill it out here. Its getting late in the afternoon and we have life. After trolling some more we whack a few more Mimi’s and see Tuna all over. Looking back at the spread the long shotgun rod with a 14-inch Marlin Lure gets throttled by a large Blue Marlin. Fish on everybody screams as the 50 wide two speed reel is almost on fire. The lines are cleared and the deck was quickly made ready for the battle and it was clear by now this monster had no intention of meeting us and getting up close and personal. The battle did not last long, the Marlin won the battle. The mainline had parted in the middle of the line. What an upset after two very slow days of trolling the release of that marlin would have bounced everybody back in the zone. We trolled around for sundown watching tunas jumping and frolicking but no bites.

After dark we set up for the Swordfish drifts, we deployed the chum, sword lights and baits. Now we wait, and eat dinner, rib-eye steaks, grilled veggies and homemade Cole slaw what a feast. The first bite came late around 1 am, It was a keeper sword not a giant but a keeper. About an hour later three bites came in an instant causing chaos on deck these fish charged the boat and the tangles we wicked. We cleared the tangle ASAP but the fish were angry and they would not wait for anything, two gone and 1 boated. We straighten everything out and get the baits back in the water and wait only for about 30 minuets for another bite. This fish came in real easy with little commotion and fell victim to the gaff quickly. The last bite of the night was around 4 am which was an Oil fish around 35 lbs.

After sunrise we started trolling, today the plan was to troll around this area and up to the northeast towards a wreck in 950 ft of water and do some deep dropping. I don’t recall if we caught anything trolling up to the wreck that morning but when I circled over the wreck the bottom machine almost exploded with red marks all over and around the wreck. We anxiously cleared all the trolling rods and deployed the deep drop electric rods and rigged them up with 3 lb sinkers and large circle hooks baited with whole squid and a half of mackerel. We motored back up to the spot and dropped down; it’s a long way down like almost 2 minuets, which seems like an hour when you are excited. The baits did not sit very long on the bottom before I watched the rods start to bend over and the started hearing the guys screaming “fish on”. The first fish up was a nice snowy Grouper about 28 lbs then another snowy about 20 lbs then on the third rod we watch the rod stop bouncing and come up with an empty hook. The fish became UN buttoned for some reason. We made a bunch more passes during the morning and had consistent fishing on almost every pass catching Snowy and/or yellow-edge grouper. There were also Barrel fish coming up; these fish fight all the way up shaking their head violently and bending the rod tip almost to the water. Then I hear “hey look at that weed line” I was so focused on what was 950 ft down that I was not looking 300 ft away on the horizon. I let the boat drift in to the weed line and soon we heard “mahi on” now this is where it get pretty awesome the mahi’s are almost jumping in the boat and I see the deep drop rods bent over with fish 2 Barrel fish 1 large snowy and a bunch of mahi come victim to the gaff all in a matter of seconds. We worked that weed line for a while catching a bunch more mahi and a couple of barracuda. The rest of the day was a fish here and there but nothing compared to the morning. It was a long day because everybody was looking forward to some more sword fishing that night.

The first Sword came up at 11:30 pm it was about 100lbs or so and the second bite was not long after in fact we had three bites quickly but we couldn’t put the hook into the fish. The last sword of the trip was around 3am this one was just keeper size. The next morning we started trolling towards home and boxed up some more mahi and 1 more Wahoo. At 3 pm I called out lines up guys and pointed the Gulfstar towards home.

What an awesome 4 days, lows and highs, little fish and big, calm weather, great company and excellent food what more could we ask for!!

Nice looking Swordfish for Mike!

  Wally’s turn to show off the Sword he landed!

Mayor Robinson

Jim’s Swordfish 

   

Mike’s Wahoo & Capt. George with a barrel fish

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