Did an overnighter and all I can say is WOWWWW!!! We blistered all that has fins... I was in a mood and needed a soul purging smack down and got it this trip!!!
Jumped aboard Erics rocket and set sail for the hudson early yesterday afternoon... I had broght the kitchen sink and although I had planned to start with a few tile drops we didn't get there til "troll thirty"... Hit a color and temeprature break with skippies and porpoise and slid out a mixed spread...
In the first half hour there was the tell tale zig zag shadow of a medium sized blue hanging behind my one big bait I had opted to run in the shotgun position... No touch or take though. I had kind of paired up with Buddy H before we left and joined them after hearing better conditions where he was...
Gettin there therfe was blue water, weeds, flyers... I felt like I was back home... He was getting yellowfin but I was drawing skippies until that same shotgun bait got the attention of a full growed blue... Bowed up screaming drag and the hook just flat tore out... The leader was chafed 31" up from the lure...
We shut her down at dark and switched tow 2 shark, 2 tuna and a sword bait... The night was pretty dead excpet for a slob hammer head...
We got on the troll while still dark trying to get back to the active area we had ended up the day before... Long before sunrise we got covered up with yellowfins. A 70 + fish was first to find the deck followed by a 50 class fish while a couple got away... A few minutes later we had another multiple... Before nine o'clock we had been covered up five seperate times with eight good fish to stuff our in deck boxes to the brim...
Deciding to keep one spot open to fill our limit we left the action to go try something I havn't tried in years... Tile fishing. First drift sucked but then we go in a slow but steady groove... With our pick we called Buddy H in his magnificent Prime Coat on her maiden canyon run over and we gang drifted the area...
We collected a dozen tiles and were in the process of cleaning up and readying to run home when Buddy called over... "Theres a nice mako swimming right etween us."
I couldn't see it in the lighting condition but in a New York second deep Deckhand and I had a shark bait rigged and deployed. I thought Buddy would burst as we bowed up!
Thirty minutes later we had the 160lb fish decked and were headed for the beach with an obscene amount of meat...
Deep Deckhand and eric show off some kind of deep water ling and a "grey sole" we picked while tile fishing.
Brought the "Dad" south on Saturday... A couple thunderstorms along the way and an hour wait for the Rt.50 bridge were the only notables along the way. My crew forthe most part showed up Sunday and settled in.
We discussed all the different strategies we could employ for what style to fish and the boss man settled on the "hero or zero" Godzilla class spread with a standard dink and dredge back up if we weren't raising fish.
Lines in call on Monday morn had my mate and myself deploying a ten bait spread of all monster class plastic as requested. Barts, mashers, cavitators, bazookas, wide range and even a couple "terds in the punch bowl" tossed in. Unable to get a fresh turbidity shot had landed me in dirty water to start but as we steamed along at 8 knots it wasn't long until we had decent water and getting better. Plenty of flyers, whales and bird life kept us company. Late morn saw the first visitor to the spread.
A small white came up on the bazooka and it was rather comical watching it trying to I guess hump the leg of the 18" offering cause he sure couldn't eat it. Finally he peeled off and less than a half hour later a moderate size blue slapped the masher. It came over to the bazooka and shouldered up but never unloaded. We pitched a mack but the fish ignored it and faded away...
The afternoon saw a white shagging a wide range but never even touched it. Then a bit later a blind bite hammered the "Terd" and proceeded to dump half a fifty wide before launching. A smallish 150-200 class blue gave a good accounting of its self then charged at us. I could say that the angler didn't reel fast enough but that wouldn't be accurate. I was slow on the sticks and didn't react fast enough. Some slack got in the equation and the rod stood straight. By dyas end we had covered from the Washington to the Poormans.
Day two had us at the other end of town after Lennys shot nailed a good looking piece of water. Got in there and it was stunning condition. There were a couple pots near us just jammed with bait and dolphin both... We established the ends of the lively gorgeous water and traversed it all day. A lone white came up and swatted the same terd we had the blue bite on the day before. Deep dechand laid a bullseye of a pitch on it with a dink and the fish couldn't care less. It was locked in on the odd looking plastic and wouldn't play. An hour later here came a better class of blue. No keeper but 400ish. Madder than a hornet it erupted behind two barts and our shotgun bait swinging like a drunken brawler but the mouth never came open. The clock ticked fast that day and we had drawn no more billfish bites come close time.
Day three found us outside of where we had fished Tuesday. Unbelieveable amounts of bait, whales, birds, rips, etc. Spirits were high. I hammered a thermal break working south when we spotted a floating lounge chair. Closing in on it we had a fair dolphin eat the turd and dropped the 24.5 pounder in the box. I swung back in the area and piles of dolphin swarmed behind the big baits. One pair though looked odd. I had my boss pitch to the bigger of the two. One of our other crew pitched the other. Circles both sunk and a few minutes later we had a pair of mutant looking critters on the deck. I have caught a few but always much smaller through the years but nobody aboard had ever seen such. I knew immediately from the size of the bull something special had just happened!!!!
There is a subspecies of Dolphin called Pompano Dolphin. This rare catch seldom exceedes 4 pounds. I had never seen one over 3 p[ounds and never even heard of one over 5. This fish was clearly bigger... I would have to wait to get to the dock to dig up some solid info that would eventually lead to something really cool.
We worked the break to where it met structure. A white raised and smacked my shotgun. A while later one popped at a wide range senior. Then they started comming fast and furious. Primarily back on the shotgun or the turd it was a steady stream of the, We agreed no pitching unless a potential money fish but Deep Deckhand couldn't help it. He drilled one and had it running just fine. I don't know what happened but for the first time since I have dragged circles we had one pull. Oh well.. We had a lone small blue pop a bart off the tag and shadow. We pitched both hoo and mack at it and it ignored us. By the end of the melee we had eight white bites and a blue bite but only one fish actually touch a pitch. None of em big enough to play and we didn't mind a bit.
We had three great days with the best bunch of guys that I could have ever asked for. We get to try again at the Ma500 in a couple weeks. We tried the hero or zero and the zilch came up this time.
Back at the scalews though it got interesting. We hung the 24.5 fish for grins to see iif we could sneak out daily meat money. Then out came our oddball Pompano Dolphin. We got the biologists and IGFA people scrambling. Previous record 7 pounds and change. Our fish........... 8 and then some!
Ok we didn't take home a million bucks but you couldn't buy the smile from the boss man for twice of that when he found he had a new pending world record !!!!!
A closer look at the subspecie...
On the certified scale at AKE's...
The "Dad" was already in Utches after the WMO and rigging out was made easy... Good relaxing pace. I guess my first thanks go to Mary from Hinches for being so on the spot with great service and bait as usual.
My team guys showed on Sunday. The Boss reitterated that hero or zero was the way he wanted to play and the team was unanimous behind him. Did the tent formalities and called it an early evening.
Day one found us in the Baltimore. I can't recall seeing more bait, whales, porpoise, dolphin, etc. Bites though were few and far between making for a long day. Just one mystery bite was all we had to show for it.
We did a couple lay days back to back. Gave me a chance to try and get surveyors in place for our new addition comming soon. I chatted with some of our SFC family and met some others for the first time. I guess a couple thanks in here. First to Box and a couple others trhat offered up lunch. Then to our new girl Jersey for being so good about insurance and "making my day" with her smile...
Thursday found us above and deep near the Wilmington. Hero or zero was the game in play and usually that includes a standing order to shake off any rat whites or undersized blues comming to the spread. All good in theory but when dragging effectively fourteen teasers (Ten slob baits + four real teasers) fish can't help but raise. Raise they did, and despite trying not to catch em two whites managed to find the big steel any how. Some others didn't. We donated part of our spread to a pack of wahoos before the day was done and soon it was lines in time.
Back on land, Utches stayed open late to service our fuel needs. Restaurants were all Jammed but my backstreet scallop spot found us seats so a thank you goes out to them too.
Friday had us working a gorgeous break. Bait, flyers, birds, debris, colir and even a few mahi but no real fish. Other boats in our area commented on the same. I got back inside 1000 fathoms and a near keeper blue launched on the shotgun. The tag line band let go but the rod never even twitched.
A tripple of whites came up next and battered the spread of plastic bigger than they should be tryin and two actually took drag before setinng the rods to standing straight again.
I slid back further in and the shotgun got hammered blind. Half a spool down to me indicates a well hooked fish but as we cleared the last line out of the way that stick stood up too.
Crunch time was commin at at 3:07 the one small bait we had out had tickled the pickle of a medium small blue. Got it calmed down 3/4 of a 30w spool out and like the small blue of last tourney it began racing back at us with the same result as last... a pull off.
Back on land I met back up with Jersey and enjoyed some pleasant chit chat over a cold one. My crew came later for dinner and I gracefully bowed out to join them...
All in all the last two events couldn't have gone much better. Great to have guys who have a go big or go home attitude and all the patience that needs to go with it. We caught a few fish, had plenty of action. Great company and a better time. Thank you to all who helped make summer '08 such a good one.
Its not over by a long shot. Got a couple overnighters to the Hudson scheduled and a new rig to get dialed in... So the sunshine state is gonna have to wait a little longer to get me back... Lucky state...
Well she has a really nifty driver seat...
ANd she has a couple spiffy steering wheels...
And she even has a couple big grumbly things...
'96... Cherry... 1400 hrs, surveys mechanically and hull like new. Almost every 12volt toy has issues from disuse... No biggie as we're planning to replace almost every thing in her any way... 28kts at 2050(below cruise of 2100) with tabs not working, dirty bottom, barnacles on wheels and the wheels not reconditioned recently or maybe ever.
25knots loafing at 1925. Pins at 2300+- but electrical connections at gps bad and unit shut off before I could get a read but roughly 31-32...
She's got an eskimo icemaker and I am already blue printing to turn drink box into both a freezer and live well...
Well lets see. Picked up new sled a couple days ago. Boss man and I shopped and shopped for stuff yesterday. Got all the basics covered.
My honey do list is a mile long...Change litterally every pump on the boat, rewire most of the 12v stuff, a month worth of work to get her really right. So where do we start? Pumps? !2v stuff? Nah... Lets go fishin!
The boss thought I was kidding with the 28 at low cruise but there it was a few seconds after clearing the no wake zone at highlands. She was a tad more sluggish than the other day after taking on four hundred gallons but at 2015 rpm we were squirtin at 27.9-28.4 and still a hundred below normal cruise...
The GPS and Radio blinked on and off. The tabs are soft. He didn't care. That grin went ear to ear as we blazed out to the mud hole. Two or three feet of chop of wind against tide didn't even get this brick to wiggle.
I laid her down in the pots on the southwest corner and minuteas later mahi blood was spilled... No tuna wanted to play but the day was still a pretty good one. Shook the dust off and not so much as a drop of spray made it over the bow rail. Engines purred like kitties...
The north end reports sucked, a tropical storm is comming, tons of stuff to fix or replace, so what do sane people do? They go fishing of course....
Jumped aboard Erics rocket at early thirty... Slid to the glory in search of bluefins. Other fleets were inshore of us and we could stop there on the way back if we didn't score.... Five minutes into the pull we had a nibble. Missed it. A second and third miss followed before connecting with a mahi... No big deal right?
Well its all a matter of how you look at it. I am not one to bail dolphin. I run away when I can... I've had enough green death come over the transom to fill two lifetimes. I will however take singles as they come... And brothers and sisters... They did come. We did our best to shake em off or pull the baits away but today they were ferocious. We never doubled or trippled the whole day but we took a three man limit and relased that many again. All singles!... It was obscene in green!
I never came off the throttles or gears all day but I don't think we had five continuous minutes during the day without one on... Blistered, punished, spanked, crushed, call it what you will it was nuts....
Eric was worn thin by the mahi massacre....
When Charlie wants to fish there is no telling him "No". We began last season with a tropical storm on top of us. I called him to tell him no way we were going anywhere. "Baloney" find us some place. We ran south and west through the storm itself to the keys and salvaged a great trip out of nothing.
This weekend would be a dig way down into the Deep bag of tricks cause he was gonna fish despite 25-30 knots... I told him to leave the big girl behind to keep the pilings company. Lets shake the dust off the "other Contender"... Launched her Friday morn in a semi gale and icy temperatures...
I had a stock of secret stuff and soon we found some marks... From that moment forward we put the hammer down. We blistered bluefish, pounded porgies, tickled a tog and absolutely whacked the weakies with no mercy for the that day and yesterday.
Charlie displays a couple of the tasty tidbits as my club footed clam eating dock buddy looks on waitin for the scraps...
NOAA should be shot for that farce they call the weather service and cram down our throats as a forcast. Small Craft Warning in effect for winds of 20 knots and seas of 5-7' through today? They can kiss my scuppers... It was glass but a big swell as we rounded the hook with the big boat at first light.... Some pretty custom boat tried to keep pace with us but the steep swell had him hoppin and floppin like a burnt bunny rabbit while the new Mirage ate the stuff for breakfast at a very comfortable 28 knots...
We arrived at the secret spot and I guess ten minutes passed before the rods started bendin. The Offshore Innovations "Hatch Bars" were on fire again. Last week I forgot to mention that it was them that added a lot to the mahi smack down on Erics boat. The rods stayed bent pretty much all morning with mostly sneaky secret shark baits (a whole seasons worth), a stray bluefish, a nice dolphin and a bonito tossed in for a kicker.
Deep Deckhand poses with a trunk full of the secret ones...
The Mirage fish box drain is draining the right color...
LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
[/
Reply With Quote
.. We had a lone small blue pop a bart off the tag and shadow. We pitched both hoo and mack at it and it ignored us. By the end of the melee we had eight white bites and a blue bite but only one fish actually touch a pitch. None of em big enough to play and we didn't mind a bit.
Originally Posted by Ravens16
