ow

[Deep C]

I wrote how good the boat has been behaving the last few days. That didn't change but the sea sure did. Even today ut went from bad to way bad to unfishable...
Hit the suds early 3-5 with some sets of 6' bumpy but doable. I reached 135' and we had a small bonitio at least give a decent fight. At 140' "there he is ,,, sail right rigger" I had rigged up a few experimental circle rigs and this one had done the job raising a fish on the first pass. The fish though bit the bait hard without swallowing. Never even pulled it out of the clip but wrecked the hoo.
Seas built wind blew. I worked 80-400 at first. Weed out deep thickened and was pushing in so each pass was getting shallower.
The squeeze and seas got worse all day. The Albie habit of going through waves instead of over was now mixing as some the stuff got just plain big. The window shrunk and shrunk. I tucked way to the inside where green water from the inlet slammed against the now heavy sea. Bad place. I worked south to get out of that washing machine. Small flyers were all over today but only us pushing them. No fish in sight.
I was into about 50 feet when I looked back to see a five foot billfish comming at left rigger which had now been switched to the same experimental rig that the sail had raised on. Son of a gun, that bait is now a part of my tourney spread. I got a look at the fish. It was one of those real rare flat needlefish like I caught last year. Man! They are cool looking. Still trying to bow one up even on a good day is next to impossible. Still it was great practice dropping and doing the circle come tight thing. Over and over it gave me shots. Finally it must have felt steel and took off.
Weeds and seas continued to whip us with no mercy finally we call it a day. For me it wasn't a total loss. That new rig is gonna be the shizzle. We didn't catch. Not the rigs fault. Just freaky luck. After I dial it in a bit more I'll describe it in full. Right now its a bit of a hybrid between guac, traditional circle rigging and a couple dial ins I do with one of my J rigs...
I'm sore as hell so I think I'll go hunting for a while now.

[Captain Michael Buffington]

Are you talking about a houndfish?
Michael

[Deep C]

No, houndfish is a different species... The flat is more of a cross between billfish and needle. Two smooth bills. No teeth. Their body is flat sided instead of kind of round that the hounds have. They have pec fins like a billfish and the second dorsal and anal fins almost remind you of the dorsal of a marlin with the high spike and tapering back they are way cool fish...