I was hoping to spend a nice quiet day doing lure stuff... Instead the phone rang early with my dock buddy at the other end... "Got a trip for you... Two third day"
"Its blowin pretty good."
"They know and don't care"
I really wasn't up for the beating I knew would be waiting but bookings have been way slow and that boat needs to keep running to feed my family. So off I went. My party consisted of three guys from Conneticut who were down doing some finish carpentry work on an office building.
As predicted the seas were a sloppy 4-6' and it was a challenge just getting the riggers out... I hate store bought bait but it was all I had to work with so I knew it was gonna be tough.
The water inshore was a weird dark green but soon gave way to a pretty blue. Almost immediately the day savers started gathering little dinky bonitos. Knowing these guys were from out of town and that our tiny fat alberts taste like crap I released the first one. Then got chewed out!
"You want these stinky things?"
Yep they wanted them for ceviche... So we started to box them in pretty big numbers. We added a dolphin of about four pounds and a couple pee wee blackfins. I tucked in tight to the color change hoping for a sail but instead the day savers started a steady pick on big blue runners. Again they wanted them so I didn't argue...
I dropped five or six smaller runners in the well in case they wanted to try some sailfishing later. Several more bigger runners went in the box.
Inshore of me I saw some large explosions. I slid in to investigate but couldn't see anything from the helm. Up the tower I went and it wasn't long before I could see black tip sharks working mullet. I loaded a runner on a spin with a short section of wire and we bowed up very quick...The bugger ran right for the beach and I backed til I was just outside the break. I could see more around but decided to work the one we had rather than hook more.
Nearly forty minutes to bring the 70-80lb fish to the boat. I was prepared to box it as they do taste good but they didn't want it so I let it go.. I took a poll about what to do and they wanted to go back trolling. I can't blame them as we were getting the hell knocked of us on the slow and/or drift...
We picked some more neeters and missed one bite that could have been a sail (our only meat bite of the day). Finally at 2:00 we packed it up and made for the dock.
Despite the rough it at least was pretty action packed. I was glad we had made the trip. They're going to be around for a few weeks and we'll be trying again soon...
Actually thats not as rare as it seems... I have a couple local cops that go a few times a year specifically for them. In fact I'm expecting almost any day to hear from them. The one cop is Greek and just loves the little ones. I also worked on a 55 Viking out of Jersey for a Hatteras trip some years ago. They kept a couple for the same thing...
Now the runners thing is a bit more rare. Often I see the old black men on the bridges keeping them and I have been privy to even trying some and it wasn't very bad at all...
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