What a difference a day makes... Wind shifted. Switched up locations although the one yesterday had fish... Good looking baits but two tinks instead of runners...
Set the spread out and almost immediately had a small silk shark. Want a newcommer to the game as he had leaders hanging oyt its mouth. Recovered one of the hooks . A circle but kind of heavy wire and like maybe 4/0? Oh well. I thought the day was gonna be another hellish one as a dolphin wolfed a flat line and I saw others. They left me alone though.
The sun broke through and bingo there was a double... Clean release on both. Just put two more baits out and again another double within minutes. This one did the "Y" thing so I had to dead boat while looking at nearly bare spools. I saw other fish cruising in the face of a swell while my guys worked the pair. Finally got one then I could chase down the other.
With four under the belt it was now blowin hard and I reset again. This time it was a single that raised...Nick took no mercy with that one and it was released quick. I reset and a king cut off a bait. As I rerigged the other bait was eaten by a sail that we never saw until it launched right next to the transom. Unfortuantely the line found the wheels as the fish raced forward and then around the bow.
Four baits left I was still hoping to hit the magic ten mark. Two more were splashed but it was a wait in growing for the next bite. The rough chop pulled the hook from a bait and I loaded out another. There came yet another double. Both bowed up one went straight off my port side and one up and again aroiund the bow. Ed hung on to his as Nick tried to get to the bow quick.
We have a pop up bow light thats normally closed. I don't know how or why it was open but it was and Murphy's law found a place to hang and bust that line on. Still we got the other.
Out of live baits we trolled for a while but the wind had the spread looking bad. We pulled th plug and made for the beach. Not the ten I hoped for but a good day none the less, and certainly better than yesterday...
I know it doesn't make my passenger from yesterday feel any better but he and I will again take a shot at glory in the spring.
Its February... In most places that means cold crappy weather. South Florida though this is a strange month. We get more postcard perfect weather than we know what to do with it. That is great for those who want to come and get tan and play at the beach but for fishing it can make for some mightly long days.
I had some things I wanted to do on the Contender, Missus Deep wanted to go for a ride. I hadn't planned on fishing but what the heck. The joy of getting a late start is the radio can tell you a lot. It sounded like our section of Gulf Stream highway , at least on the edge was not willing to barf up much if anything. A zillion boats and not a handful of bites among em.
That spurred the ol Deep thought process into one of "those" places. "Ok we can go catch nothing close to the beach or we can stretch off shore and try for a big nothing."
I have been working for years trying to come up with a combo/ circle rig that might work. Recently, I had come up with an idea that I hadn't tried yet. Using a smaller head, a bigger hook mounted on the baits forehead to get the all important gap clear of the lure head, might just work. Its akward looking and I have always been anal about stright streamlined lines but the same rig has worked well with my nakeds so why not.
I grabbed a bag of store bought hoos (YUCK! ) and slapped some on the rigs I had made up and gathering dust on the boat. Now what to drag em with? The big stuff was at home. Oh well, the best way to invite disaster is to go under gunned so with a bunch of speed masters and a couple tld 25's... off we went.
What a pleasant change... No crowds of boats. The buildings on the beach get smaller, the radio gets quieter, the near shore blue water turns purple. 600' seperates us from the nearest hard ground and seems like a place to start. The new baits run like a dream. So far so good. Don't know if its gonna hook fish though without a bite. We push on out.
I'm pleased to see schools of big skipjacks working. Good marlin food and they usually leave my stuff alone unless I shrink to small feathers. Has me curious why those inside screaming that they cant any bites of any kind aren't there at least bending rods.
The day is gorgeous. I see a slob yellowfin blow up just fifty yards away. ike the skippies though they seldom want to play unless the bait is real small... I drift off into dreamy world. "Click ...ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!" bowed up. Never saw it comming but the circle has found its mark. Missus gets to work.
These southern skippies are a bruiser on light tackle and the fish works her but good for a while. Ten minutes later theres a flash. Seconds later the aftco tapertip ends the debate of who's going to win.
Back on the troll. We repeat that sequence a few times.... When fishing off Palm Beach, you can't realisticly expect a shot at a marlin. You can hope but expect is a different thing... I'm now pounding 900' and then there it is! Not a slob but maybe a buck and a half of blue one playing no games about piling on the "wrong" rigger...
"Damnit Deep, move!" I start to, he's already closing mouth around the bait before my feet reach the pit floor. I'm leaning for the rod. Its all slow motion now. The clip has let go and shes comming down. Then I see it. The death blow comming. I was expecting no win if I came in contact with a blue but this one was small enough to probably stand a chance with. Not with a coil of line that wrapped the rod tip...
The rod bent horizontal for the blink of a second then stood up with a resounding "crack" as the 30lb parted. I could see fish greyhound off with DK in tow. Part failure but also part success. The rig stuck and I didn't even have to drop back.You want so bad to get the shot back. Its gone. You pound the spot again again. The sun moves across the sky. Not today Deep... Not today...
Making 33kts back to the beach I replay the days memories in my head. No regrets and all smiles. There will be other shots and I WILL get at least that combo to work...
So tired I can barely see the screen. Head back out as soon as this thunderstorm passes...
Started yesterday morn... Tried dragging dinks to start. Greenish water and loasy radio reports along wiith a soouth wind had me knowing it was gonna be a long day. If I'm gonna catch nothing, may as well try for big nothings. The Contender saw a white last summer and a blue last week but never really had a full marlin spread working so I gave it a try.
Damn... Plain lures wouldn't drag worth a crap behind her. Played with throttle but couldn't find happy place. Wakes and wash just not right. Fiddled with the spread and found one that kinda looked good. I had ciecles on the riggers and shotgun but the iland pros just wouldn't match up with any I had so they got J on the inside. Found some life around 600' dragged for five hours before a big girl raised and did a drive by. She didn't commit. Three more hours without a bite and I had to drop a guest off back at the dock.
Having just smelled the skunks ass I was looking forward to a fresh start swording. Damn weather man lied and we had a stiff fifteen from the south instead of the five he promised. Short nasty chop and 5.6 knots of drift!!!
I loaded up on the lead and got a three bait spread about where I wanted it. The dark came on cue... The long mid depth bait then started running off. I let it go for a few then went to come tight. I was there for a few seconds as the deep started going and then the short. Oh boy a tripple. Then one by one all three came unglued. As each one came up they were baseballs pulled down. Not torn up I pulled them back straight dropped a few stitches and started sendoing them back. Bang Bang Bang all there took off again.
The fifties clickers were groaning good. The eighty was not quite as noisy. Then one by one all stood straight again. You might guess that my language was choice having just missed six straight bites. You'ld be right. I restitched three more base balls...
Had just reset two when they both went off. These bites just seemed strange though.. Something just not quite right. Couldn't put my finger on it but just not right. I feed em both for a long time came tight and drag was again singing... Both came loose after a couple minutes and I was now fit to be tied. I began looking for a sword to fall on, rusty razor blades for my wrists or any cyanide pills to swallow. The first rig came up and had what appeared to be a swordfish eye ball on the hook. I grapped it unhooked the object and just when I dropped it over I felt something hard on it?
The next one came in and it too had an eye ball atteached... WAIT A FRIGGIN MINUTE !!! 0-8 and two eyeballs in a row just doesn't happen. Stopp the presses!!! I grabbed the "eyeball" and un hooked it. It too had something hard to the touch. I turned the lights on and was floored by what I saw.
This thing had teeth. An upper one and a lower one!!!
It took a few minutes for the micro processor to catch on. This wasn't an eye it was a beak from a friggin ginormous squid!!!!! Bigger than a golf ball not quite as big as a tennis ball a friggin squid beak!!!
That boys and girls for me is a first!!!!! I never even heard of slob class squidlies in the Atlantic????
The night dragged on with no more excitement. It was late o'clock when we hit the dock. It seemed like I blinked and it was time to go again. Eight hours we dragged it all. Tried jigging kings, Tried dropping the wrecks. Nothing, nada zip zilch zero... Then as I was pulling the spread to duck these thunder storms a sail swatted a dink. One swat, too slow to react and drop back. Gone...
Hopefully tonight goes better... I'll post a pic of that beak when I get home...
Well was ready to go but still raining and my people are as exhausted as I am. Pulled the plug on another swords adventure... Suppised to blow some tomorrow so we will probably go back and shoot for sails...
As promised.... The beak from squidzilla... You can see why in the dark I thought they were eyeballs...
Also another shot from near where we had the blue bite. Palm Beach is not known for blues but I have seen little runs of em. You never know unless you try. You can see some interesting marks on the left of the depth screen and again high near the center... Also note the boat is pointed south east but only making less than two knots and actually heading a couple degrees north of east with as much current as we have been seeing...
Crossing
The weather window was small... Really small... Slopped out in the dark as the north wind was already cooking. I never go on a north for good reason but 25kts and 6' on the head for 80 miles the day before was just a no do deal. On the beach she was calm. At three miles three miles three foot from the stern then we found the stream. 5-6 on the scuppers and tight as a 130 on a tuna. Still we were able to do a moderate 26-27 knots against what was amounting to nealy six knots.
Mid stream we would get sets of seven foot junk then she'd relax back to 5 foot. Suddenly our port engine dropped all the way out to dead idle! I still had gear but she wouldn't turn up. Puked? Computer shut down? No way to tell woithout popping the cowl and take a look. Had to time the seas just right. Off came the hood and there was the throttle cable detached with no cotter pin in sight??? Wired her back up and we were good to go.
Five miles out the sky grew black... Death rainstorm. We tip toed through and made our way to the Sea Crest dock. Had a delightful gal clear us through customs and we offloaded the Mirage. Taking a break when done I busted oout a Mrs Deep hand made samwich. That first bite was heaven. Deep deck hand doesnt like crusts on his samwich so he was throwing them to the birds. Before I could get my second bite one of the winged rats from hell he had chummed up took aim a fired off a shot of shit that bullseyed my samwich, hand and blue jeans...
Time of our Own
Boat unloaded, customs cleared, rooms checked in, camp set... it was time to play. The weather sucked too bad to get offshore so we went for a bonefishing wade at the far end of the island. Bones were scarce. Saw aa couple non players was all. Did see a big lemon shark shagging Deep Deckand but no issues. Then I spotted in the grass a delicious piece of Bahamian ******... Conch... Screw the bones, I went on a mission and found a few more to add to the pile.
We enjoyed a good quiet meal at Big Game Club and had a n early night. The next morn we loaded up and went wahoo explorin... High speed stuff well to the south produced one hiit on a yo zuri plug that basically busted the plug in half and straightened the hook. We switched to more traditional methods. The spread was set and took some tuning. As we got back to the mark where we had the first bite, a second fish started smoking off. It had eaten a mamba boo combo on a Box style planer set up. (THANK YOU SIR BOX!). I had the rarest of all pleasures. No guests ment it was my chance to turn the crank. As the fish neared I saw jaws show up, but it made a clean miss.
Deep Deckhand showed up with a wimpy hand gaff thinking our fish was a wee hoo... "Better look again Dooshberry... Use a real stick..." He poked the striped torpedo and we had accomplished what we came for...
We made another pass through and another bite. Good fight but wrong flavor. DD tossed a slob cuda in the box for our Dockmaster buddy, Pat...
Enter The Guests
Charlie, Nick, his guests Bruno and Sylvie were right on time. A conch salad lunch waited and was eaten. SInce we wanted them to taste as much of the styles of fishing off Bimini as possible we really didn't put much effort into chasing hoos. Rather, we trolled just a couple minutes then went inside to burn some live baits on a patch reef. The first bite spooled a 30lb spin outfit and I'm guessing amberjack. The next one was a cuda. Bruno was on deck. Being from France the language barrier was therebut he did just fine. Sylvie was terrified of the bahamian spotted sea trout but ot made for a good pic.
Moving roight along we repeated that a few times. Then switched our game to the bottom. In no time we had an "aquarium" full of exotics...
We managed quite a few more to come up with a nice mix including a dandy yellowfin grouper I managed to keep out of the rocks. I promise to those that don't know, that they are the holy grail of grouperdom and some of the finest eating critter on the planet.
Game time...
The lines in call was made. I was rushing to beat the tide and approaching field of grass. A split tail mullet was clipped but the steel found no victim. Moments later, Nick was on deck for his bite which was a good sized dolphin. I believe the biggest of the tourneyat about 25lbs but no category. Good start...
Minutes turned to hours... The radio was dead. We beat the edge with no mercy. Sylvie collected a flying fish while sunning in the bow...
I guess that it was a bit past noon when again the BOX style rig was the one doing the damage... Charlie was on the stick and afetr a good battle we were assured that we would be at least going to weigh in... More hours passed and another bite on the same rig. No luck sinking the mustad though... The final bell rang and we ran in with our one fish. What a surprise to find that the most of the fleet was effectively slow as molasses and our 38 pound specimen was largest weighed so far and would manage to hold third place for the day... I will hand it to the crew of the Savanna Lynn though. They had tallied more fish than the rest of the fleet combined by taking a hundred plus mile run to above Walkers Cay...
Day two's sunrise brought with it a south west wind. Great for marlin late in spring but death on the edge this time of year. Boats fanned out all over. We stuck to our game. Early in the day we highspeed fished toward the south. A couple miles into it the right flat screamed but the fish didn't stay stuck. Now damnit, I spend a lot of time hand crafing lures for my own use. This was no exception. We brough the rig in to see hwat had happened. Hooks twisted? Skirt blown up? Nope... Right on the lead was a set of teeth marks. I took that personal that the fish thought more of a grey chunk of lead than the black and red work of art draging behind it.
We hammered rips like you can only dram about. One after another these swirrling caldrons and standing waves showed promis. We raised two billfish and caught a couple dolphin but they just wouldn't barf up a money fish...
The clocked ticked... We worked it hard but nothing to go to the scales with. At the very end we had a wee hoo too small to qualify. Running in we saw the Savanna Lynn again returning from places others just couldn't reach. Another boat fly up from the south signalled that our third place status was in Jeopardy. The Savana Lyn had two fish including a slob 80lb speciman. That other boat nudged us out of the money with a 70 pounder... Oh well we gave it a good go.
Ride Home...
We dropped the boss at the south island for his flight. Deep Deckhand and I cleared the cut and deployed a marlin spread. About five miles out we had two baits go down. Never saw the fish. The baits were torn up pretty good so I would have to say "Not a marlin". We trolled all the way to Lauderdale without a bite... Thunder storms blocked our path to Palm Beach and one even nailed us. We trolled to dark and were gonna make the run but decided to give it a quick sword drift. We had a bite quickly but unfortunately it ate the light stick instead of the bait. A second bite dumped half a 30 Avet before comming unglued...
We pulled up stakes and ran for home... Not quite done yet though we stopped at a favorite bridge light and tried to get some of the snook gathered there. They were intent on popping shrimp drifting by and never gave the jigs a second look...
So thats the story of this run at Bimini...
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