Winter/ Spring 10...

[Deep C]

Not much to blabber about at this early stage. weather up north kept us there til mid Novemeber before a crappy wweather window let us finally crawl south.

Fished a few times locally on the 31. A nice mix of dolphin, tuna, skippies and a couple of sails.

Headed to Islamorada for that annual tournament. Nobody from our crew was really sharp on their game, myself included. We scaled second place tuna and mackerel along with a handful of sails but near the numbers we needed to get in the money.

Back home we hauled the big boat. What should have been a yard quickie has turned with ice cold weather into a long drawn out battle. Actaually have had frost eight or nine times to date. Add to that replacing the rudders after shearing one off and its been hell.
In between yard days have been a couple trips on the 31 and again its been a nice mix of dolphin and sails to keep us busy but no banner home run days yet.
Hope to get the big boat out of the yard and even Deep C back running soon and turn up the heat before heading island side...

[Deep C]

Been a while since I had a really good day. Not gettting a lot of fishing done recently with the big boat in the yard. Oh yeah some quickies with a steady pick of onsies and twosies but no real smack downs this season to date.
Odd to see fog here but there it was. Boss and his buddy were late thanks to a painfully slow waitress at breakfast. Fine by me as it gave a chance to wipe the dew down and let the fog cook off some.
Grabbed our bait and slid off into a hobbly gobbly washing machine type sea. Blew hard yesterday from the south last night from the north and today was east. Splashed a trio of gogs and started the slide. Wasn't long before we had our first shot. Single ran our baits into a bunch causing a touch of a tangle ate one and went away.
No issue. I swung around and laid back on the spot. Two more there. Missed one but finally got the next...
The pace never really let up after that. Not a blistering smack down but rather a single pick every few minutes of fishing time. Go run one down and set back up to do it again. Not sure what was up their scuppers but they were miserably tough strong fish today with three of our eight pushing the half hour fight mark...
Any way... Nice to be flappin lotsa laundry again...

[Deep C]

Boss was a little late this morn. Fine by me. I had to take another pain pill in the night as my new implants were really barking at me. So I was occupied shaking off the slowness still this morn.
Quietly slid out of the dock. Then cleared the inlet. West wind was screaming. I pulled the sticks back a little short of where I usually start. A few birds and a fair looking break with a few weeds in shallow got me thinking. I set out a little purple day saver and readied my other baits to deploy. Caught a glint of purple out of the corner of my eye. No muss no fuss, sail was up on a piece of plastic.
"Hey Boss, why don't you reel that fish in?"
"Huh? I didn't even know you had a bait in the water."
"I don't . Its in his jaw..."
We could see people on the beach we were so tight. The fish put on a dandy show and about fifteen minutes later I had the leader. With the important one taken care of that quick the day was made.
The sea wasn't rough but the screaming wind made things not so perfect. I went a head and laid out my pink and blue day saver. "Doink" I had a neeter letting it out. Boss had me dispatch that one quick.
Re set and finally got the spread out. I love the compliment when a bird thinks my bait is natural enough to attack. I do not however care for it when a large gannet spears one and bows up. Boss let me drag that feathered beast to the boat. I got to duck its needle sharp bill a few times before laying the ol throttle grip on it. Hook out and I get to fly a feather from the rigger going home.
Got deep and had a mystery bite. Big rainbow runner. We don't catch a lot of them so when we do I get all tickled. With the sun out the temp was good. The wind though just was too much. The boss man had me point her at the beach and we called it a quick one.
Best part of this one hour quickie was comming in and hearing about all the snow elsewhere...

[Deep C]

Another hurry up and crawl out for a couple hours today... Big girl sounded good and ran fine so that was a good thing. Little smoke then cleared up.
Had Canyongear Tim along for the ride. Stopped at my bait man for a dozen delicious. Man they were big gogs today. Too big as we later figured out.
Had a scare maybe 30 minutes into it. Left rigger went right and right rigger ran lef and actually up in front of us. Saw a sail in the mix but no eat. A short time later had the rigger go down and saw a sail with it. Left side got piled on . Rigger fish never came tight. Hook never pulled from the bait. Left side ran and gave a few jumps but somewere in there it too came unbuttoned.
Pretty quiet despite "right" conditions. Fish didn't want to play but Timmy got to reel in our second goony bird in two days...

[Deep C]

My God!!! I have been sloppy about keeping up with thsi report thing... Won't bore with details. Since last update we had a few more local trips collecting about twenty sails along the way and one day with a boat laod of big kings before heading island side...


At Chub our fishing was limited this year... The owner was busy as can be and couldn't tear away from work... We managed I guess fifteen sails and only one of eight blues we raised. The usual dolphin and wahoo filled the gaps. Didn't catch a white til the day we left for nassau.

In Nassau we just sat. I ran one day to the exumas and brutalized a mix of cero and dolphin...

Running to Bimini was interesting... Chub was quiet with oinly big dolphin to show for our efforts. Comming through Gun Cut though we dropped the spread and Canyon gear Tim picked off his first blue... A nice 400-450 class fish...

The next day tragedy befell the little island as a plane buzzed too low and caught the power lines right in front of me... No survivors on the planebut a family on the beached burned by fuel should make it through...