Dave
04-30-2009, 11:06 PM
Gunnar took the day off from work yesterday to meet me for an offshore trip. The plan was to get on out there and try and find some warm water at or near the Big Rock.
The winds were non-extant at the ramp, allowing for the gnats a skeeters to chew on us a little - first encounter for me this year. Moving past Bft inlet, the seas were up just a little more than I expected so we had to hold back to 19-20 knots on the way to the fishing grounds. I took a direct course to Buoy 14, thinking of the possibility of finding some working birds on or at the buoy but nothing to be found in the 70 degree water there... so I marked a course to the rock and we continued on, where we arrived at approx 0830 and slowed to set out some baits.
I had brought along a package of 'hoos from WalMart that turned out to be unusually soft and hard to work with without tearing up. I layed out two poor-man's downriggers with Sea Striker #4 planners on a hundred foot leash to get me about 25 feet under the surface. To the starboard side, I put on a blue/white sea witch, threaded on a ballyhoo and peeled off 100 foot of rod line to trail the planners. I did the same with the port side rigger except to use a purple/black witch. While Gunner manned the helm to keep on on course, I put out two more witch/hoo swimming baits and ran them back about 150 feet behind the skiff; blue/white to starboard and pink/white to port. That done, we set our speed at 5.5-6.5 knots and worked our way toward a couple of other boats fishing some mile or two SW of our present location. As we approached near 1/4 mile from one of the boats, we could see they were hooked up and then landed what looked like to us to be a king mackerel.... maybe a small dolphin. We turned in their general direction and noticed that there was another fellow on that boat that was hooked up long with a fish that he was still letting run. We stay well clear of him and continued fishing the general area until shortly thereafter, we had a short striker hit the starboard swimming bait. Reeling that one in to change bates, we deployed it just in time for a solid hookup on the port planner rig. I opted for the helm and told Gregg to take the rod, as the reel continued to scream off line.
I steered the skiff slightly to port but the fish was a good 300 feet out before I could clear the other lines and get down to working the boat in position to allow Gregg to start recovering some of his lost line. Right away Gunnar said the fish jumped out of the water and I immediately thought "Dolphin" but Kings will jump sometimes as well.... we didn't come out 50 miles to catch kings, but it was a fish on and I was excited for that, just the same ;D A few minutes later the fish jumped twice in a row and I could clearly see it was a nice dolphin tethered to the business end of Gunnar's line. A few more minutes and we had our first fish of the day, a 36" (fork length) cow dolphin in the boat *Woot* I stopped for just a few seconds and snapped a couple pictures for the history books and we set back out for a repeat........ that unfortunately didn't come. I was thoroughly disappointed in myself for not taking the 'hoos out the night before and brining them well before this trip, they didn't hold up more than a few minutes without washing out and I'm sure that contributed to our lack of additional hits. It was approaching noon, the winds were out of the north and it looked like it was going to be a slow run back to our second planned stop of the day, the 240 rock, some 31 miles SW of our current location.
A little more than 2 hours later, we pulled up to a spot just north of our final fishing hole and we tried for some grouper but only could manage several small bsb. 3 miles further and we were at one of our go-to humps, where we dropped spanish sardines and Gregg immediately brought in our first nice keeper bsb of the afternoon. We continued to make short drifts of the spot and continued bringing fish aboard, most of them small but we did manage to put 10 nice bass in the boat before heading for the barn.
It was about 1700 when Gregg mentioned to me that we might want to put some more gas in the tank before we made our final drift... our final because the gas disappeared in what seemed like just a few minutes before I had last checked it! I had brought 7-1/2 gallons of spare gas along, we had zero gas that I could see in the main tank and 28.5 miles back to the inlet, then about 4 more to the dock :eek: I was sure we couldn't make it and was trying to think of a plan of what to do when we ran out short of the inlet. Before you ask, no I don't have SeaTow... I've got a CS with a 140 Suzuki on the back... so I don't need it. *001* rotflmao rotflmao rotflmao
Well, the Good Lord was watching over us and we did make it back to the ramp with what looked like a gallon to spare *yay*
This afternoon I called and paid my annual due to SeaTow *thumbsup*
It was a long but fun day at sea and in retrospect, I'm glad we went out so far, if only to catch one nice dolphin; it was Gunnar's first since a long time and (as always) I enjoyed his company, his good sense of humor, and his overall positive and helpful attitude.
Dave
http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc188/djerhart/OffshoreofBigRock-Gunnarw-CowDolphi.jpg
http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc188/djerhart/OffshoreofBigRock_20090429-Gunnarw-.jpg
The bluefish moved in on us late in the afternoon and took both of our bottom rigs, but not until I managed to bring this one to my studio for a portrait, before turning him back to find his mates.
http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc188/djerhart/OffshoreofBigRock_20090429Davew-Blu.jpg
The winds were non-extant at the ramp, allowing for the gnats a skeeters to chew on us a little - first encounter for me this year. Moving past Bft inlet, the seas were up just a little more than I expected so we had to hold back to 19-20 knots on the way to the fishing grounds. I took a direct course to Buoy 14, thinking of the possibility of finding some working birds on or at the buoy but nothing to be found in the 70 degree water there... so I marked a course to the rock and we continued on, where we arrived at approx 0830 and slowed to set out some baits.
I had brought along a package of 'hoos from WalMart that turned out to be unusually soft and hard to work with without tearing up. I layed out two poor-man's downriggers with Sea Striker #4 planners on a hundred foot leash to get me about 25 feet under the surface. To the starboard side, I put on a blue/white sea witch, threaded on a ballyhoo and peeled off 100 foot of rod line to trail the planners. I did the same with the port side rigger except to use a purple/black witch. While Gunner manned the helm to keep on on course, I put out two more witch/hoo swimming baits and ran them back about 150 feet behind the skiff; blue/white to starboard and pink/white to port. That done, we set our speed at 5.5-6.5 knots and worked our way toward a couple of other boats fishing some mile or two SW of our present location. As we approached near 1/4 mile from one of the boats, we could see they were hooked up and then landed what looked like to us to be a king mackerel.... maybe a small dolphin. We turned in their general direction and noticed that there was another fellow on that boat that was hooked up long with a fish that he was still letting run. We stay well clear of him and continued fishing the general area until shortly thereafter, we had a short striker hit the starboard swimming bait. Reeling that one in to change bates, we deployed it just in time for a solid hookup on the port planner rig. I opted for the helm and told Gregg to take the rod, as the reel continued to scream off line.
I steered the skiff slightly to port but the fish was a good 300 feet out before I could clear the other lines and get down to working the boat in position to allow Gregg to start recovering some of his lost line. Right away Gunnar said the fish jumped out of the water and I immediately thought "Dolphin" but Kings will jump sometimes as well.... we didn't come out 50 miles to catch kings, but it was a fish on and I was excited for that, just the same ;D A few minutes later the fish jumped twice in a row and I could clearly see it was a nice dolphin tethered to the business end of Gunnar's line. A few more minutes and we had our first fish of the day, a 36" (fork length) cow dolphin in the boat *Woot* I stopped for just a few seconds and snapped a couple pictures for the history books and we set back out for a repeat........ that unfortunately didn't come. I was thoroughly disappointed in myself for not taking the 'hoos out the night before and brining them well before this trip, they didn't hold up more than a few minutes without washing out and I'm sure that contributed to our lack of additional hits. It was approaching noon, the winds were out of the north and it looked like it was going to be a slow run back to our second planned stop of the day, the 240 rock, some 31 miles SW of our current location.
A little more than 2 hours later, we pulled up to a spot just north of our final fishing hole and we tried for some grouper but only could manage several small bsb. 3 miles further and we were at one of our go-to humps, where we dropped spanish sardines and Gregg immediately brought in our first nice keeper bsb of the afternoon. We continued to make short drifts of the spot and continued bringing fish aboard, most of them small but we did manage to put 10 nice bass in the boat before heading for the barn.
It was about 1700 when Gregg mentioned to me that we might want to put some more gas in the tank before we made our final drift... our final because the gas disappeared in what seemed like just a few minutes before I had last checked it! I had brought 7-1/2 gallons of spare gas along, we had zero gas that I could see in the main tank and 28.5 miles back to the inlet, then about 4 more to the dock :eek: I was sure we couldn't make it and was trying to think of a plan of what to do when we ran out short of the inlet. Before you ask, no I don't have SeaTow... I've got a CS with a 140 Suzuki on the back... so I don't need it. *001* rotflmao rotflmao rotflmao
Well, the Good Lord was watching over us and we did make it back to the ramp with what looked like a gallon to spare *yay*
This afternoon I called and paid my annual due to SeaTow *thumbsup*
It was a long but fun day at sea and in retrospect, I'm glad we went out so far, if only to catch one nice dolphin; it was Gunnar's first since a long time and (as always) I enjoyed his company, his good sense of humor, and his overall positive and helpful attitude.
Dave
http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc188/djerhart/OffshoreofBigRock-Gunnarw-CowDolphi.jpg
http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc188/djerhart/OffshoreofBigRock_20090429-Gunnarw-.jpg
The bluefish moved in on us late in the afternoon and took both of our bottom rigs, but not until I managed to bring this one to my studio for a portrait, before turning him back to find his mates.
http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc188/djerhart/OffshoreofBigRock_20090429Davew-Blu.jpg