Flapper & DarstM joined me for an overnight trip on Saturday. We ran East to calmer waters and found some weed patches at about 30-40 miles out. We landed a few Dorado and made some bait at another so we pushed further out. We arrived at our spot around dark and pulled the sword gear out. We drifted our target area all night with everything looking good, the drift was a little quick or at least I thought so.
I became worthless with a migraine around midnight and had to leave the crew to watch the lines & take the first watch. Just before sunrise I was able to finally start moving around. I started to reel the lines in for the morning troll when I felt some weight on one of the rods. I quickly realized we had a bite as we were retrieving the gear. I yelled for the crew to assist me in clearing some of the lines, grabbed a belt and kept the line tight. A mad scramble ensued as rods were reeled in, floats and weights removed and the battle was on. The fight was short lived only about 10 minutes, the sword came up and made a short final run. We were able to get it to the boat & grabbed the sword, measured... 2" too short. We took some photos & had her back into the water for the revive & release. After about 5 minutes we released the sword and she swam straight down into the depths.
I was pretty pumped, despite it being too small we set out to get a sword and mission accomplished. We spent the rest of the day deep dropping and trying some new spots. Each spot paid off as hooks were coming up with 4-5 tile on each drop. We even brought up a family of dogfish including the momma, daddy & little babies. The seas were perfect Sunday and the weather cooperated for us.
We did a daytime drop for a sword at a new location with nothing having and after about 45 minutes we had a large ship moving towards us and a few pop up rain showers so we opted to move in for a potential grouper.
Very little seaweed in the areas we ran, however once back on the shelf the sporadic weed patches popped up. On the way in we stopped for a grouper with nothing wanting our bait after 4 drops and one snag we decided to start heading in.
Found a huge patch of seaweed and hooked into a bunch of mahi with tipped squid as baits on any small hook free lined. Nothing of huge size but bigger than chicken and good eating! We landed about 12 or so with a few doubles.
We ran back towards a few wrecks and we went through the remaining bottom gear and 2 of the the most productive jigs getting break offs or snags. Had a few fish pull off, one bad knot etc... some nice AJ's got lucky is all I will say.
Pulled back into Surfside around 8:15 PM and was back home by 10:30.
25 Tilefish, 1 Swordfish (released), 15-20 Mahi.
I became worthless with a migraine around midnight and had to leave the crew to watch the lines & take the first watch. Just before sunrise I was able to finally start moving around. I started to reel the lines in for the morning troll when I felt some weight on one of the rods. I quickly realized we had a bite as we were retrieving the gear. I yelled for the crew to assist me in clearing some of the lines, grabbed a belt and kept the line tight. A mad scramble ensued as rods were reeled in, floats and weights removed and the battle was on. The fight was short lived only about 10 minutes, the sword came up and made a short final run. We were able to get it to the boat & grabbed the sword, measured... 2" too short. We took some photos & had her back into the water for the revive & release. After about 5 minutes we released the sword and she swam straight down into the depths.
I was pretty pumped, despite it being too small we set out to get a sword and mission accomplished. We spent the rest of the day deep dropping and trying some new spots. Each spot paid off as hooks were coming up with 4-5 tile on each drop. We even brought up a family of dogfish including the momma, daddy & little babies. The seas were perfect Sunday and the weather cooperated for us.
We did a daytime drop for a sword at a new location with nothing having and after about 45 minutes we had a large ship moving towards us and a few pop up rain showers so we opted to move in for a potential grouper.
Very little seaweed in the areas we ran, however once back on the shelf the sporadic weed patches popped up. On the way in we stopped for a grouper with nothing wanting our bait after 4 drops and one snag we decided to start heading in.
Found a huge patch of seaweed and hooked into a bunch of mahi with tipped squid as baits on any small hook free lined. Nothing of huge size but bigger than chicken and good eating! We landed about 12 or so with a few doubles.
We ran back towards a few wrecks and we went through the remaining bottom gear and 2 of the the most productive jigs getting break offs or snags. Had a few fish pull off, one bad knot etc... some nice AJ's got lucky is all I will say.
Pulled back into Surfside around 8:15 PM and was back home by 10:30.
25 Tilefish, 1 Swordfish (released), 15-20 Mahi.
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