Just because I'm back home doesn't mean for a second my work load has eased up. Been making a storage/ rigging/ lure making room since I got back. Took a break from that to shake the dust off the 31 Contender that has been sitting here with no love since early June...
Missus Deep was up my scuppers to ride along and go fishing. The boat needed a good shake down so why not? Well it was a bad day to not have a camera aboard because action was the name of the game... We picked two big dolphin and a smallish one to begin the day. Soon after the slob skippies and some smaller ones came to play. I kept the little guys for sword bait as we have a tourney next week. The big ones were going to get turned into tataki loins until the blackfins found us... We picked enough of the delicious little footballs for a couple dinners and let the rest go. To cap it off we added one of two sails to come callin... A great welcime home...
Not slowin down to enjoy bein home a bit. Jumped headlong into setting up our new shop... Kind of a do all place. Some lure making, some rigging and some storage for the crap our now seven boat Deep fleet...
The boss man has a storage place in his Jersey home that holds some of the goodies when we are based up there. Down here though our pile of stuff has outgrown my house. Charlie is working on building a set of tackle and though we keep some aboard the boats we needed an overflow catch all here... Now he has a few of those rolling rod racks. Noice but they don't hold enough and they are damn expensive.
Me being the Deep Cheap kind of guy, made a rod box for me years ago. I got to thinking, why not one for the boss too... Theyre simple enough to make. A couple 1x6 and a couple 1x8 planks a few screws a 1.5" bit and enough stamina to drill 48 holes in each of two planks...
Big Stuff going at one end...
Little at the other...
Man! Life is good for the Deep... Sometimes almost too good. Not only do I have my stuff gathered over thirty plus years of doing this to take care of but now I have all the goodies for the new fleet to organize too.
Stuff happens fast. Only a year ago I only had my two boats to look after. Then came Charlies 31 Contender... First it was a set of mid class trolling stuff. Then add in two sets of sail gear. Then add a marlin set... Now lets spread our wings and add a Bahamas set... Add a new rolling tackle box, another Contender, a Jones brothers. While we're at it toss in a Viking express and some more goodies...
Castle Deep is a big place but was getting smaller each day as the new fleet grows. With the boss's blessing, I went out and got us a place for our stuff. Couldn't be any ol place. That would be like having just a car instead of "The Rolling Tackle Box" ... It had to be special... "The Room Of Death"...
Yall saw the rod box...
But you didn't get a look at the rest of the room... Please pardon the dust as I take you through a tour... Its still under constuction...
I guess we can start near the door... The verical drawers are home to the heavy stuff. We have lead, bottom rigs, wahoo rigs, sword rigs, jigs, tuna lures, spray paints, lubricants, engine parts, reel parts, and planers located here... Not shown in the pic is our chum center with blends of additives and grinders...
Above the drawers we have one of six "cages" around the room to hold rigs about to be used... these being sword rigs for next weeks event...
To the left of the door we have our bulk stuff... Bean bags account for some... Our old bonefish raft joins the stack and Our new Zodiac boat is in there too. I'm saving room for our new motor that will be comming soon...
Under that stuff you will find a spare set of 27 x 42 wheels...
Believe it or not... this is what over a thousand Mambas and Teardrops looks like on the shelf...
No real fishing room of death would be complete without a case each of bug spray, sun screen, reel lube, 1000 gallon ziplocks and 500 more two gallon ones. Cant forget three dozen spare lure bags and shipping supplies...
Ever wonder what 3600 lure skirts looks like...?
The shop's got about a hundred kits of pre rigged lures of all my styles stuffed in here or there...
Now toss in six feet of table for assembling and constucting lures the another six feet reserved for the rigging of them...
Add a 40 gallon can to hold your worms and this is a good start to a "room of death"...
They had intended to run to the Hudson but with reports slow the decided to stop the big Mirage short at the glory... Charlie called at just past noon to ask where the Band Aids are hid... Seems they have a few blistered thumbs aboard!
Current score is three Bluefins and 21 Falsies falling to ballyhoos with my DK lures over them and Offshore Innovations Hatch Bars doing almost all the damage...
Current score: 29 Falsies and 7 Bluefins!!!
That qualifies as an all out blisterin!!!
Final count was obscene... 38 falsies and 12 bluefins! Boss pulled the plug at an even 50 fish..
The phone rings... I see its Deep Deckhand... No biggie. He's probably at the airport getting ready to board the plane. He'd land and we'd jump on the Mirage for a practice night of swordin. We really needed to get tonight in. Same condition as forecast for tourney night and I havn'tscouted in a while.
I answer and he says "good news or bad? which do you want first?" I could feel my blood boiling... So many times he has missed a flight and I had to do all the loading and prep work my self Iexpected to hear that... "Good news...I have our newest tiagras in my carry on bag..." "Bad news is that they overbooked the flight and I got bumped..."
Ok so he's gonna be late... I've dealt with it before. Phone rings a while later. Its him. "More bad news. They bumped me again. I bitched at the gal behind the counter and she had me thrown out of the airport!!!!! Got another flight booked tomorrow..."
Screw it... I had a dozen of my own personal baits thawed and I needed to see how the boat would drift in a stiffer wind than usual... Off I went through the 2-4' slop arriving just past sundown at one of my sneaky spots... Out went the spread and she drifted great...
A bit past eight one line gave a quick run off but no fish. Checked the bait and it was unmarked. A while later my high bait had the same thing... All along the drift were big foot wide jellyfish all over. I bitched and moaned about them to myself. Fish would not enjoy being around a jungle full of them... At 8:45 the deep rod started running off slow and steady. I straped the harness to the 80 wide outfit and wound her up tight. There was a fish on for sure but it started running at me. I wound like hell then it raced for the basement...
Ride em Deep! I thought the run would never end and half a spool later it had only slowed some... A short stalemate was followed by another drag burner and I knew this was gonna be a long ride...
I've caught my share of swords solo from my nimble little skiff but this big ol fish around responds slow. Add to that a fish thats straight up and down and it was some rough and tumbe to get six inches at a time. I don't care who you are but an eighty wide on stand up is no fun for any amount of time. Go for an hour and twenty minutes and its out right uncomfortable.
Finally I saw the blinking of the LP strobe... Cool. Another twenty minutes later I had the wind on in the tip... "Get me out of this f*****g harness now. Unclipped, set the stick in the holder and grabbed leader. The bitchy broad bill wanted no part of comming closer but I wanted an end to the game.I sunk the straight and the bill swinging started big time. She was packin over a yard of it! I reached back with my free hand and laid the flyer on her... That pissed her off even more. With two handles on her I bent to the water, locked my knees over the gunwale, and planted her on the cockpit sole. Sorry for the blur but I was a bit shakey still...
She chilled and I snapped a better shot of her...
Back at the dock the security guard was good enough to snap a shot of me with her and earned a few steaks for his kindness...
Well its now past 1:AM and I have a fridge full of sword (20 Gallon bags!) to pack into smaller bags... so I guess I need to stop typin and get to baggin...
Not all reports can be glowing epic recounts of great catches and this certainly one won't be... Such is the way of big game fishing...
After swatting a good solo sword a few nights ago my crew was hoping for the best. There was to be a practice night with Deep Deckhand and his friend Dave, just to iron out how I wanted the spread to be deployed and worked. We got it out and were doing our thing, dirfting anddreamin and waitin for the bite... It came on our high bait at about 9:00. Not too different than the night before... The 50w screamed in protest as the fish bolted for the horizon. About a half spool later I was staring in the dark and spotted our lightstick go airborne... Couldn't see the fish but a pretty impressive sounding splash followed... Then in typical sword fashion the stick went straight and it was score one for them and none for us...
We reset three times ducking thunderstorms and watched some wild light shows for the next few hours... Unfortunately the one bite we missed would be the only bite of the night.
Charlie joined us with his guests the next night. Conditions were ideal but we couldn't buy a bite. I heard of only two missed fish near us and three caught fish way down by Miami. It was appearant that the fish we had up on this end had really spread out if not almost disappeared... The night ended with an 0-0 but the company was delightful and the night pretty.
Last night the forecast 15 + knots arrived about the time we checked out for the tourney. It was turn up the heat time and 43 miles down the road had some structure that held more promise than the local grounds had showed the night before... We arrived with enough daylight to try a day drop... 40 minutes of soak time in the deep deep did nothing but crush our light and cost us a sash weight... It was kind of neat "jigging" by letting the boat drift down and raise the bait then drive back up the line and let her sink. The sun began to set so we made our move.
Arriving at the"spot" hopes were high. Weeds drifting by posed some issues keeping the lines clean but there was good amounts of bait in it... I expected to see more life in the lights but really nothing more than dinky bait was to be seen... T
he east wind had the bottom comming back up at us fast and it wasn't long befire we were forced to reset eight miles to the east... Right at midnight we crossed 1500 feet and were in 1492 when the deep jug bait began running off... We locked it up and wound all the slack out of the set up quick. The 80w tiagra shrieked as what evidently a good fish, the right fish, shot toward the Bahamas... 24 lbs on the heavy stick may as well have been freespool as the premium Sufix evaporated into the abyss... The rin slowed and eventually stopped. A few cranks though had our hearts sink... The fish just wasn't there...
We reset again to counter the ferocious east wind and building seas... The crew was game despite deteriorating conditions and stuck it out til quit time around 3AM ... Two more baits came up mauled but I think it was squid doing the mauling. The night had covered 32 miles of north south drift and 16 of east west with only the one shot. We missed our shot at glory last night but we'll have other shots down the line. Again great crew and great time despite no score...
Though I fished a couple weeks ago with good trips on tunas, dolphin, a sail and a sword... today kinda kicked off the new season for me... Always a honor when its other charter captains taking the trip. Curt from Reel Delight out of Ocean City, Capt. Perry and his wife of Topless Charters in Chincoteague were my guests today...
Wind from the south generally means slower fishing and better to use the dead baits rather than live. Slid into a gorgeous sea. The promised 5 knots was more like 15 but still very comfortable. I know Whitey will love this part... The neeters were thick. Ok so they don't have the social status of sails or whites or dolphin even. They do break up the monotony between bites though... Perrys wife was our designated angler today and got to see a couple dozen or more of em, a couple gaffin class cow dolphin and a couple sail today...
No home run but beats sitting around waiting for snow, raking leaves or watching your boats dry out in the offseason yards...
The rest of the week is supposed to be cold front on top of cold front and blowin hard from the north... Still a little early but I think it should kick the sails up a notch.
Early or not...Two days into a hard north blow and cold we had to go... The other day was dead bait condition but today was live bait ciondition.
Was surprised that 20 knots only had it 3-5 on the edge but wasn't going to complain... Spread was out a half hour when a single came looking. He chased the two rigger bits into each other but never opened his mouth. A king soon followed and left us short one hook...
Todays guests were the same as the other day. Capt. Perry of Topless Charters out of Chincoteague, Curt from the Reel Delight out of Ocean City and Peryy's wife Nancy who was our designated angler...
The slow current actually let me make some south in my ride and soon I had passed the range I wanted to work. I slid back into the slot and there they were. A tripple moved in swinging and swatting and Nancy got to work. She dispatched two of the three quickly but by the time she got to stick number three that one had evaded capture...
I was resetting right in the same spot when I mistook a blind bite for a frisky bait. Yes gang... Ol Deep dropped the soap on that one got bent over and barked at the moon.
Reset again and had a couple toothy cut offs... Yet another reset had us in em again. Nancy got to work on the flat line fish and Perry decided to man up and try one himself. The third fish in that pod swatted the bait but didn't eat. Nancy whooped her third fish of the morn in quick order... Perry's fish didn't want to play the game though and I had to enlist the help of the Yammies to keep the game going. This fish knew where the water got big and draggged us there. It was no time before our 129 foot honey hole was way behind us and there was 350' of water between us and the bottom. The 3-5 went 7-9' and it was a bit special on a couple of them... Probably a half hour had passed before i had leader in hand on that one...
I was breaking Perry's stones about his fish being the only one of the morn to man handle him and get us out deep but it was simply a hot fish.
We came back in to our spot. Redeployed and had a kind of rare occurance. Bowed up a nice dolphin. As nancy fought that one a wahoo clipped off a rigger bairt and another sail came in and smoked us on the flat line. Rare that we had all three kinds of bites at the same time...
Out of live bait, they had enough.... It was back to the dock. I had a box of deads I was looking to trade for dolphin so I jumped in my skiff and was gonna give it a ty. I was between the red and sea buoy in 60 feet when both riggers went down. Both sails... I had jacked up the tackle from my speedmasters and 20 to tld 25s with 40 so there wasn't a heck of a lot involved in the way of sport cranking them in. I got to 80' and the sea had tightened up some. Not much bigger but sloppier so I turned it back to the beach... I still have 22 dead ready to go tomorrow... Fiur for seven on the morn run with a big dolphin kicker and two for two before bailing out on the PM ride... Early in the season for a smack down but I'll take it...
Nancy and Perry hold their morning laundry...
Nancy shows off some fine eating...
Flappin a little cloth...
I cleared the inlet and braced for the mind numbing four minute run to the secret spot... With all that time on my hands my mind wanders ... What will today bring... The wind eased off and its a little calmer than I had hoped...
Yesterday it was sails all over and a stray dolphin... Today was a stray sail and oodles of dolphin... We did what we could to steer clear of the green ones but they found us at every turn and had our live bait supply gone long before noon... we switched to dead and they still found us.
The lone sail today was an unruly one like we finished off with yesterday... Just didn't want to cooperate and again we were in 350' before getting the hook back...
Theres another front arriving as I type this and the wind kicked up around noon so we called it a day early...
Curt was called to duty on this one...
Way too cold to be standing outside playin with fish...
The girls stayed at home again and it was Curt and Perry to join me for one last romp before they have to slide back to the north...
The wind puked out but a nice big gentle swell was rolling... I was hoping to see tailing sails in it but it just wasn't meant to be... We got to the zone and I had to steer around weeds and schools of dolphin for the first hour or so... We did have a few dolphin find us including a nice 25 class bull... Then it really shut down..
I pounded where I thought the pointed critters might be hiding but no such luck... Out deep I could see dolphin then a little closer I started seeing bait with some bigger fish beating on them... I slid in and a rigger went down blind. Smokin run had me thinking wahoo but alas it had no stripes. I don't know what a hoss king mackerel was doing out that deep but his teeth missed our leader and he found a home in the box...
It quieted down some more so I went on a scouting mission. Nothing caught my eye and after maybe a half hour we gave up on that and decided to try way in close to the inlet.
Our last three baits were sent swimming and a second slob king found one of em. Also not finding the mono leader it found its way to join the other. We had a blind bite that left us with no bait and we were down to one...
Up he came... A sail came charging and smacked the shiit out of it. It ate and I bowed up. The fish fought then out popped the bait... I knew right then that it was an inverted hook in the bait and "hooking" just wasn't gonna happen. The sail came back madder than hell. It fought some more and I got it close to the boat. Again the bait popped out and again he came right back and piled on it. This went on two more times til he was leader length still tugging on it... Great site... One hand you could call it a catch but on the other it never was "hooked" either way it was fun... We had four good short trips and had plenty of fish on each one...
Thanks Curt and Perry for the great company...
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kind of guy, made a rod box for me years ago. I got to thinking, why not one for the boss too... Theyre simple enough to make. A couple 1x6 and a couple 1x8 planks a few screws a 1.5" bit and enough stamina to drill 48 holes in each of two planks...
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