Winter/ Spring 09

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Had an oddball trip scheduled for the after noon... A Hanukah present for a five year old... I finished chores on the big boat early and had several hours to kill before the afternoon run. I had a dozen pre rigged hoos that I intended to use last week staring at me soI decided to go for a drag...
Heading out the inlet I saw boats going backwards in different places. I set the four baits and two fakes in the wash and had one of the little day savers drilled as I was setting it in position. The sail took a couple shots at it and I never saw the two comming on my right side.
One gave me a second shot and it stuck... As I throttled back the other rigger went down. Doubled up... The one fish nearly spooled me while I fought the other... The fist came to leader quick. The circle kind iof straightened rather than the leaderr break and soon I was headed east for the second... Stubborn would be thr right term... I was in over 200' when I got that ones leader and popped it... I dragged back to where I had the first bite and here came a single on the inside rigger... The circle found its mark and I walked forward to follow and fight it. Never saw the other one eat the left rigger behind me until it was dancing kind of paralell to me. Second double was dispatched without issue and I went back for more. That unfortunately didn't happen. No more...

I got in for my late trip. The kid was five years old... Nice little fellow and nice father and uncle to join him for the ride. I slid to the rockpiles and the chum did its thing quick. A steady stream of grunts made their way to the boat. A couple blue runners added some tug to the strings then we caught a nice spanish mack. That one is headed for chub. The highlight and deal ender though was a nice spanish hogfish... The kid took one look at the teeth and went into a panic... Poor kid never did get roght after that and daylight went away... All in all a good day...

[Deep C]

Looking at whats yankin on it...

Goin away mad...

I give Ryan a good look at his first pointy one...

At the other end of the boat Bob gets with his first...

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When wind goes south in January you can count on slow fishing and today was no exception... Had the missus out for a quick spin and knocked on a lot of doors looking for something to answer... Tried inside for an hour. Had a shadow I think was a sail there for a few seconds but no raise or bite.
Went deep. Found weed line with trash. Triggers and tripple tails but no dolphin. Tried deeper then shallower again. Got in an area with blackfins busting all around. Pass after pass they wouldn't play. I tried all the tricks but they were intent on eating half inch stuff hanging in the weed patches...
Came back to the edge and saw one guy out of the whole fleet bow up a sail. We had a rigger go down with a big bonito and when I slowed down we also had a sail come in to play with the other rigger bait that was dangling. It tugged at it and spit it several times but never really opened up on it...
We cauught some more bonitos and that was that... Gorgeous day just slow...

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The weather forecast was worse than it turned out to be and at 7 am I gave the green light o go. The damn tide was out and still going down. Stuck to the bottom or not the new Mirage had to go... Made the bone jarrin mile run through 2 foot chop driven by 20+ knot wind... Don't know why it wasn't big but I'm not gonna complain...

Noticed no clumps of boats . Rather a line spaced well apart as far as the eye could see north and south... I could hear not much cooking for thorty miles in each direction so I selected a spot and went to work... was in a turn baits in the sun for the first bite... Empty hook syndrome... Reloaded and got a stabbin sized dolphin.
Got on another turn again baits in the sun but I saw a beak. Hook inverted and turned back into the bait... 0-1... Then another green one then another...
A second sail swatted a bait blinded by the sun inverted hook again and 0-2. At least no human error..... Then a slob kingfish skyrocketed with our rigger in sites... Todays angler was top shelf new to set up early and managed to bring the pig to gaff range... I screwed the pooch though on stroking it laid up right but the butt of the gaff caught the boat when I went to set it home. That split second stutter was enough time for a tooth to find the 40 mono leader and say bye.

We switched to dead bait. Still setting the spread a sail swatted the rigger and went away. Seconds later here came another green one. Then another. And another... And... And... And...
I said before the angler we had today was good... He wanted to run the pit his way and he not only fought all the fish but cleared other baits out of the way and then rigged fresh baits to go back out as we were buning em at a blistering pace... Ok They weren't sails but it was a smackdown on dolphin and all of em good ones...
This guy was understated and as good as any mate you're likely to see down here. Hell of an angler and welcome aboard my boat any damn day of the week... I would have loved to fly the laundry but it wasn't in the cards. We had a slush coffin full of meat and a dynamite action packed day...
I want to thank the boss for coughing up the big boat for our use. My angler and his dad made the day complete... I'm sure he'll get around to posting and throwing the pics up before long...

[Deep C]