Blue Water......FINALLY!!!
Now that I can actually post pictures I will let everyone see this. It's been a long time since I have seen the blue water. However, a couple of weeks ago, we found it about 80 miles offshore, and in about 350 feet of water. I and 5 other guys headed out with a guide from College Station. He has a 32 foot Parker center console, and he knows how to find the fish. Saturday before last when I went with Steve, Chris, Woody, and Jim, we went 30 miles out and found a few fish. This guy, Robert, went out the same day only 8 miles and boated over 70 fish including a limit of snapper, grouper, kings, cobia, and others.
Anyway, we pulled up to a spot and tried for amberjack.
Nothing on the first two drifts so we decided to move to a rig. There were fish everywhere, but for some reason they just weren’t hungry. After a couple of bites and no hook-ups, we gave up on the amberjack. We headed to another spot and began catching one fish after another. Mostly vermilion snappers. We also caught some VERY nice gray snapper of about 8 pounds each. While loading the boat with meat, we let out a couple of free-lines which were periodically getting inhaled by kingfish. On one of our drifts, a dusky shark of about 11 feet decided to check us out. I, being the only one who cared anything about landing a shark of that size, grabbed the free-line rod and got the hook-up. I’m not sure how many of you have tried fighting a 500 lb+ fish on 30 lb line with a 18 inch steel leader, but there is this ominous feeling hanging over your head. You are having a blast listening to the drag, but you know deep down that inevitably there will be that gut-wrenching SNAP followed by slack line. Oh well, it was fun. Shortly after, a 9 foot bull shark came to check us out. We just finger-banged it and went on about our business.
On the way back in, the captain put us over a rock that couldn’t have been much bigger than a pickup truck. After about 30 minutes, we had our fill of 20 inch snappers and we were off to the dock.
All in all, it was a glorious trip. Final Tally:
12 Red Snapper
10 Gray Snapper
24 Vermilion Snapper
3 Triggerfish
1 Porgy
6 King fish
1 Ling
And untold hundreds of throw-backs of various sorts.
Anyway, we pulled up to a spot and tried for amberjack.
Nothing on the first two drifts so we decided to move to a rig. There were fish everywhere, but for some reason they just weren’t hungry. After a couple of bites and no hook-ups, we gave up on the amberjack. We headed to another spot and began catching one fish after another. Mostly vermilion snappers. We also caught some VERY nice gray snapper of about 8 pounds each. While loading the boat with meat, we let out a couple of free-lines which were periodically getting inhaled by kingfish. On one of our drifts, a dusky shark of about 11 feet decided to check us out. I, being the only one who cared anything about landing a shark of that size, grabbed the free-line rod and got the hook-up. I’m not sure how many of you have tried fighting a 500 lb+ fish on 30 lb line with a 18 inch steel leader, but there is this ominous feeling hanging over your head. You are having a blast listening to the drag, but you know deep down that inevitably there will be that gut-wrenching SNAP followed by slack line. Oh well, it was fun. Shortly after, a 9 foot bull shark came to check us out. We just finger-banged it and went on about our business.
On the way back in, the captain put us over a rock that couldn’t have been much bigger than a pickup truck. After about 30 minutes, we had our fill of 20 inch snappers and we were off to the dock.
All in all, it was a glorious trip. Final Tally:
12 Red Snapper
10 Gray Snapper
24 Vermilion Snapper
3 Triggerfish
1 Porgy
6 King fish
1 Ling
And untold hundreds of throw-backs of various sorts.
Stay tuned for my posting of my recent trip to Belize as well.
posted by Watts | 5:47 PM
5 Comments:
Nice meat haul! What, no pics of Mr dusky? I'm not sure I believe it without a pic. Looks like yall had a good run! I cant wait for August, I'll be rigged up to bring in the 11 footers
Blanton said all the pictures of the dusky and the bull shark were too reflective and you couldn't tell what they were so he deleted them.
Even without the portion of the story about the "alleged shark" it sounds like a killer trip. I am slightly jealous that you got to go offshore so often in one month.
Yes that was a meat haul. Good size on the snapper. 80 miles is a long way off shore but it looks like the seas were flat. Did you guys have to pay for gas?
Were you fishing with Capt. Everett from C.S.?
yeah, we had to pay for fuel.
I'm not sure of the captain's last name, but his first name was Robert.
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