Pensacola Fishing Forum / Blue Water Fishing / Blue Water Reports

Swordie stuck in submersable

Xiphius — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 11:57:18 GMT

Check out this link

http://s120.photobucket.com/albums/o166/gmack7277/?action=view&current=MarlinAtwoodEagle-1.flv

Offshore Venice La

Capteddie — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 09:42:33 GMT

I had a fun thursday and friday on the shrimpers again. Headed out thursday in a 30 grady with Mike Vales. the only problem is a lack of fishboxes which came back to haunt us. Ran out to the shrimpers and started picking up blackfins. Couldnt get them to stay with us though as we drifted away the first couple times. Finally we managed to pull the school off of the shrimpers. Started picking away at the blacks and catching plenty of bonito and then I saw some yf darting through the slick. With all the blacks it was hard to get a bait to them but I finally got a 65 pounder to bite. One of the guys put it in the boat and then we saw some bigger ones down. I hooked up on a 115 and was trying to find someone to fight it when they told me too. HMM well I got lucky and it was a lazy fish and I put it in the boat in 15 minutes. Kepy chumming some more and the truly big fish were rolling through our slick now. We had only an igloo cooler left with any space and of course we hooked a stud. We put Monseigneur Nalte on the fish and he proceeded to fight it and fight it and fight it.

While hes fighing that fish we were still chumming for the heck of it and we had half a dozen fish over 150 in the slick right now. I called a couple of captains over and they both doubled up on big yellows and now we were all drifting around fighting studs. Finally the Monseigneur has to call it quits with the fish about 20 feet down and straight up abusing him. I took the rod and moved the fish up about 5 feet in 20 minutes before we let someone else put the fish in the boat. It ended up weighing 168 pounds. We had to take all the blacks out the box and put ice in the live well and then put a 115 pounder in an igloo with its tail hanging out but we got all the fish iced down and headed to the house with our three yf to 168 pounds and a bunch of blackfin.

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/mangosnap/20081115_3.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/mangosnap/20081115_4.jpg[/IMG]

On friday I had Steve and his friend Huck out there with me on the palmetto. I had Matt along to deckhand for me and I am glad we had him. We pulled up to the shrimper and managed to lead the fish to my boat on the first drift. It was the same as the day before. Only blacks and bonitos for about 45 minutes before the yellows showed up. First yf was about 60 pounds and was tossed in teh box. About 15 minutes later the big boys showed up and we broke off a 150 class on his first run. No worries though as there was another one with him. Steve got on the rod and fought the fish for about an hour before huck took over to give steve a little break. Steve got back on and about an hour and a half after the initial hookup we put a 155 in the box.

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/mangosnap/20081115_6.jpg[/IMG]

the fish had left us while we were fighting that one so we started jumping around on boats and never could pull another school off although we were catching blacks pretty reguarly. We Had one last bait so I pulled up to a shrimper and tossed it in his propwash and we instantly hooked up. Me and huck both saw the boil and thought it was a blackfin until it made a run and kept going and going and going. Hmm not a blackfin. Luckily I was trying out a new technique and had no leader on the rod. Just a circle hook to 130 jerry brown spectra so we could put some serious heat on this fish. Steve fought it for a little while before he was whupped and we put Matt in the harness. Matt's a 24 y/o college student in pretty good shape so we were all glad he was there to help fight this last fish. I bumped the drag up past strike since there were storms on the way and we could already hear the thunder. About 45 minutes after the hookup we put a stud in the box. We hauled butt to the dock and got rained on most of the way.

The tail of the tape showed the big boy weighed in at 188.

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/mangosnap/20081115_8.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/mangosnap/20081115_9.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/mangosnap/20081115_10.jpg[/IMG]

Venice truly a Sportsmans Paradise

Capt. Mike Ellis — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 07:39:50 GMT

The last couple of weeks is a prime example of why Louisiana is the sportsman’s paradise. I left the deer camp in time to drop off a couple of deer at the processers and head to Venice for six days of fishing. I tried to squeeze a duck hunt in between all of this but I couldn’t seem to wake up. But I missed a easy and quick hunt with limits for everyone. Now on to the fishing. I started this series of trips off with Franklin Hedley and his buddies from South Carolina. I had a tough act to follow since the last time they fished with me this summer we put 13 yellows in the boat and was home early. This trip sarted off on the right foot with all the mullet you would ever want and plenty of perfect hardtails. The first fish of the day was a blue that popped up behind a mullet but he would never commit to eating. After that the grand tour of the gulf started we hit three more rigs and at the third rig we finaly managed to get something in the box a 29” yellowfin. The day was really not going well for us at this time. But I still had one more rig to hit. Thankfully this rig was holding some dolphin and we quickly put five very nice dolphin in the box for a pretty decent consolation prize. If you wanted to count all of the cudas it was a banner day for them.

The following day I had Steve Gibishar and his wife out for Steve’s 50^th birthday. I was going to write something up but he beat me to it so I am just going to be a little lazy and copy his post.

Well we decided to go with Capt. Mike Ellis on Relentless for my 50th birthday fishing trip. It was definitely a good call. Capt. Mike has a very appropriate name for his business and boat as he was the most tenacious capt. I've ever fished with. He was relentless in trying to get us our tuna. I don't think I've ever fished with a harder working capt. and he was a genuinly nice guy. We're already trying to figure out how soon we can afford to go again.
One thing that differs from trips in Venice to trips in Florida is that you pay for a trip, not a specific amount of hours. I've been on boats out of Destin where we didn't have much fish when the bite picked up, only to have the capt. tell us that we were out of time and had to head back in. But for 175.00 an hour, we could stay out longer. With Capt. Ellis, we paid for a trip, and he was going to do whatever it took to get us our fish. We left at 6:00 in the morning and got back in at around 7:30 PM. The bite started late and he was determined to get us our fish. I spoke with him a few days after the trip and he said that he didn't get back in till midnight on his trip the day after ours. That's determination!

My wife Char thought the boat was comfortable.

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Stevesbirthday01.jpg[/img]

Here's our fist of four tuna coming up.

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Stevesbirthday02.jpg[/img]

This is where it all happens.

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Stevesbirthday03.jpg[/img]

Here's the Capt. himself.

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Stevesbirthday04.jpg[/img]

I'm whooped on this one, it was a little bigger than the others.

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Stevesbirthday05.jpg[/img]

I finally won.

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Stevesbirthday06.jpg[/img]

This is what we went there for.

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Stevesbirthday07.jpg[/img]

My wife working on one. (counting the dolphin, she outfished me)(again)

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Stevesbirthday08.jpg[/img]

My wife savoring the heart of her first yellowfin.

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Stevesbirthday09.jpg[/img]

My wife with one of her three dolphin, all about the same size.

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Stevesbirthday10.jpg[/img]

The final result, four yellowfins and three dolphin.

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Stevesbirthday11.jpg[/img]

I want to thank all the people who recommended Capt. Ellis as the trip made for a very memorable birthday. For those of you that haven't been tuna fishing in Venice, you're denying yourself a great time.

Following Steve I had Alex G. ,Karl,Rob,Alexis from Miami come up and fish with me. They also beat me to the punch and put up a report with a ton of pictures. So I am going to do the same thing with their post also.

On Wednesday November 6th marked the day our adventure would begin. The crew consisted of Karl (Flagman), Rob (Pescado), Alexis (LegalLimitII) and Alex G. We left to Venice Louisiana for what would be a fishing trip of lifetime. There were moments when we were sure that it wouldn’t be but when we had almost given up hope things turned around for us in a major way.

Our Cabin:

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Cuban01.jpg[/img]

Here’s how the day went: Since we were supposed to meet Captain Mike of Relentless Sportfishing Charters at 6:00AM we agreed to get up at 4:45 AM. After having breakfast and getting everything we would be taking with us to the boat ready, we jumped in the car. When I start the car and look over at the clock I see that it’s not 5:45AM, as we’re expecting it to be, but 4:45AM. Everyone forgot to set their clock back for the time difference between Florida and Louisiana so we go back in and sleep another hour until it’s time to go.

We were very pleased when we arrived at the boat. The 33’ Freeman was in spotless condition with excellent tackle and the captain and mate were ready to go!

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Cuban02.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Cuban03.jpg[/img]

It was a beautiful day around 70 degrees with the sun shinning brightly. The weather would remain like that for the rest of the day and the seas were 2 feet or less. Catching bait on the way out was not difficult so at this point we’re convinced were going to tear the yellowfin up. Shortly afterwards is when we started to realize that things were not going to be as easy as we thought.

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Cuban04.jpg[/img]

When we pulled up to the first rig, 70 miles offshore, we immediately start to mark big fish at the 200ft rage. We setup a slow troll consisting of live bait (Runners) which results in a small dolphin. We continue to slow troll the area while casting out a popper on a spinning rod to small blackfin tuna busting on the surface. We only managed to get one black and decided to try another nearby rig.

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Cuban05.jpg[/img]

The second rig was also holding fish but they where not coming up to the surface. Since trolling wasn’t working the captain decided to change the approach and we start drifting baits in the 200-300 foot range in order to bring the baits down to them. Bingo, we get a bite. We fight the fish for a few minutes but managed to lose the first 4 solid hits we get. 0 for 4 on the yellow fins and now we are starting to worry. This brings us to approximately 4:00PM with no yellow fin on the boat.

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Cuban06.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Cuban07.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Cuban08.jpg[/img]

Now we have to make the decision of continuing another 20 miles and trying another rig or heading back home and giving it another try on Friday. With the way things were going it was a very tough question but after the captain advised us that the weather may be a little too sporty to go out on Friday the consensus decision was to continue on. We were all determined not to return to Florida without catching our yellowfin and we were not going to take a chance on the following day. Our decision turned out to be the right one because we would not have been able to go out Friday because of the weather as the captain had advised us might happen and we eventually started to catch fish.

We arrive at the last spot of the day and it immediately looks promising. We hook a large dolphin shortly after starting our troll but wouldn’t you guess it, it pulls the hook and add another lost fish to the list. After we give up on the trolling we start setting up our drifts in the same manner which produced the bites at the other rigs. After several drifts without a bite we start to see more and more yellowfin crashing in the area.

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Cuban09.jpg[/img]

These were not small fish. They all looked over 100#s and our hearts where racing in anticipation of hooking one of these monsters.

Finally, Rob breaks the ice and lands the first yellowfin in the 20#s. range. At this point we’re all thrilled to have the first one in the boat when things really start to heat up.

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Cuban10.jpg[/img]

Just as the sun is about to set Alexis gets a bite. It’s a big fish but we’ve gotten awfully close to the rig and the fish is digging down. At the same time a group of 30#s dolphin who had been swimming around the boat each time we approached the rig decided to also start to bite. We lost the tuna but landed three of the dolphin.

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Cuban11.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Cuban12.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Cuban13.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Cuban14.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Cuban15.jpg[/img]

At this point we’re convinced our luck had changed and we were correct. Next thing we see is the small yellowfin caught earlier pulled out of the ice and getting filleted. Sweet sashimi time, so I thought, it turned into chunks and they started going overboard. A concerned look on my face was immediately relieved when yellowfin after yellowfin got hooked on the chunks. We hooked and landed every fish after that. We kept the bigger fish weighing in at 145#s, 135#s, 80#s and 75#s.

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Cuban16.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Cuban17.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Cuban18.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Cuban19.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Cuban20.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Cuban21.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Cuban22.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Cuban23.jpg[/img]

To say we ended on a high note is an understatement. If you’ve never caught a tuna over 100#s make sure you’re in pretty decent shape before making the trip. These fish will absolutely kill you. We all have sore muscles we never even knew existed.

[img]http://w ww.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Cuban25.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Cuban24.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Cuban26.jpg[/img]

Fresh tuna at the marina:

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Cuban27.jpg[/img]

Special thanks to Captain Mike Ellis, from relentless sport fishing, for going the extra mile and putting us on fish. It’s nice to fish with a Captain that has as much passion and hurts as much as you do when a fish is lost. His boat was very impressive and comfortable. The fuel efficient vessel was very appreciated especially at the end of the day when you’re settling fuel cost. He never gave up on us when things just weren’t going our way and the results were spectacular. If you would like to charter Captain Mike his contact information can be found on his website: http://www.relentlesssportfishing.net. Highly recommended!!

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Cuban28.jpg[/img]

I was part of a two day two boat trip with Billy Wells (Wild Bill Charters). I did get the jump on them and I am putting the report from both trips up before they get a chance to do so. I don’t have any pictures from their trip as I am still waiting on them to be sent to me. The first day I had Tony, Chuck, Bill, and Jeff onboard for a day of tuna fishing. The. weather was just about on the verge of not being worth the run to the chosen area but the Freeman made the 3-5 beam sea very manageable. Mullet was hard to come by for me that day but hardtails were very easy. The fishing started out pretty slow but the dolphin started to come in one by one and we put four nice ones on the ice. The tuna were all marking deep but the marks were rising up shallower. At first there were a couple of bust here and there. Then we got Jeff on his very first yellowfin of which he did a great job on and got to enjoy eating the still beating heart. After a quick cleanup we got back into position and immediately hooked our second fish which Tony beat quick. After that things slowed down and I made the call to head to another rig to look for some easier fish. I should of stayed as Billy got onto some good ones. Of course the next rig was barren and we fished it for awhile with nothing to show for it. We headed to the house with two 70lb yellows and four dolphin. The following day we switched out some crew members and the guys that wanted to go and catch some grouper jumped on my boat. I would like to take credit for the results of this VERY ROUGH day but I can’t. The Kristal 651 did all the work for us along with some volunteer mullet. The trip actually started out slow with the first four bites we had come unhooked on the way up. But after that we shook off the bad mojo and put the smack down on 9 snowy grouper from 15-30lbs and a bouns Warsaw in the 80lb range. I put a cap of ten grouper on the deepwater grouper trips since they take longer to repopulate a rig. We hit our 10 fish limit with ease. And the satisfying thing is we left them snapping hopefully to be left alone until I need them. My crew on this trip are all bottom fishermen from Florida and they said they have never had a grouper trip like this one before. When I get the pictures from both trips I will attach them to this post. It is awesome to live in the Sportsman Paradise.

Capt. Mike

Oil Rig Trip Oct 3-4

macala — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 09:48:34 GMT

I had a crew of four (Anna / Ruth from Atlanta) and ( Jack / Jeff from Sarasota). We had planned this trip a few months ago and I could not believe our luck on a good weather window. Friday and Saturday was our only option and seas were forecasted for 1-2. :letsparty We catch bait at the pass and we pick up 15 small hardtails off the buoys. We also cast netted about 100 small menhadens. We arrive at the Marlin rig at dark and we meet up with our friend Meagans Choice and another cat boat. I think we all ended up with a few nice yft and we all really had to earn these fish. we Live baited and chunked with fresh blackfin tuna all night and went 3 for 6. We had a nice fish on for an hour before the hook pulled. Around midnight the dolphins showed up and the bite died down. I was marking the yft around 60-120 feet and when the dolphins arrived, they went down to 150- 250 feet down.

I really wanted a swordfish so instead of waiting for the yft to come back up, we run 20 miles to my sword spot. First hour we get a hit and after a 20 min fight, it's a 4 ft hammerhead shark. :banghead We release it and set the lines out again. I'm so tired at this point I fall into deep sleep. Around 4:00 am, I wake up with one of the reels slowly clicking off one second apart. I get up and the line is under the boat on the opposite side. The swordfish must have come up on the surface while we were asleep and now was sounding straight down deeeeep. We fight this fish for an hour and half and none of us are tired anymore. He leaped out of the water half into the fight and then sounded off 200 feet of line again. As we boated the sword, the sun came up and all we could think of were grilled steaks for dinner. :hungry

After we clean up all the blood off the boat and us, we head back to the Marlin Rig. This is when we encounter one of the biggest surprises of our fishing trip. I see a huge explosion on the starboard side and think for a second that I saw a bluefin boil. I get closer and realize that it's a whale enjoying the sunrise. We get close and enjoy each other for 15 mins before he sounded down. What a cool moment!! We were so close, we smelled his breath. It stunk like old squid. How cool is that. Enjoyed the pictures.

The oil rigs are in clean blue water right now. I did see a nice weed line 10 miles south of the steps. I had a great crew and it's so nice having 2 captains on the boat as crew members. All I did was drive the boat. It's like a fishing vacation when you have captains fishing on the boat with you. I had a blast.

Jeff Choe

Offshore Venice La

Capteddie — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 07:29:16 GMT

The last two days have been memorable to say the least. Not for quantity but for quality. I had Lloyd Holland and his crew in from Auburn, Alabama on the boat both days. We started out by making some bait and then we headed south to look for some shrimpers. First two baits in the water were engulfed by mondo daddy fish who promply broke us off in the cables. The 3rd bait was the charm though as that fish headed the right direction for us to catch him. All the guys got more then their fair share on this fish as we followed it for about 4 miles. This fish never rolled over and started doing circles. When we finally got color it was still swimming on its side and when I stuck the gaff in I had both engines in gear with the fish just swimming beside the boat about an hour and 45 minutes into the fight. About 8 hours later the fish weighed 195 pounds on the scale. We stuffed him in the box and continued on with the fishing mission. We pounded the blackfin and kept 16 of them suckers and managed to put one more 70 pound yf in the boat.

[IMG]http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o202/capthoop/2008pics058-1.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o202/capthoop/2008pics060-1.jpg[/IMG]

On day two we stuck with the plan. As soon as we got out there we put a couple blacks in the boat and then had the good hit. Fish took off away from trouble and the chase was on. Fought this one for an hour and a half as well although he finally settled down adn we had him doing circles when we stuck the gaff in. 170 pounds which wasnt bad for a starting point. Went back to teh boat to find nothing going on so we hopped around and caught some blacks. Decided to head over to another boat and as we pulled up we could see the big sickle fins rolling through the propwash. Teh first fish ate two boats and we still couldnt stop him from tangling us up. Rerigged and back at it. The next fish came straight out and the fight was on. It was kind of a wussy fish as it only took about 40 minutes to land this one. Stuck the gaff in a fat 185 pounder and after a little trouble getting him in the fish box. The guys decided they had enough meat and I wasnt sure where we would put another big one so we headed to the dock at 11 am with our two pigs at 185 and 170.

[IMG]http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o202/capthoop/2008pics062.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o202/capthoop/2008pics064-1.jpg[/IMG]

Bisbees Black & Blue

Xiphius — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 08:24:27 GMT

Yesterday was the first day...two fish killed (189# and 289#)that did not meet minimum weight requirements (300#). See what the promise of major cash awards brings...way too small fish stuffed in the fish bags. Live VHF radio feed and Webcam of weigh in. Sportfisherman.com and Bisbees.com

Offshore Venice LA

Capteddie — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 09:21:27 GMT

The last couple of days have been inconsistent to say the least. I started off on wednesday on Mike Vales boat and he had never been bluewater fishing in his life. He had a nice 30 foot grady express that he wanted to break in though. We headed out the pass and hit a few close in spots with no success and then rolled long. Got to our place and I took a cast with an OTI popper and here came the dolphin. Had one hooked up and the rest around the boat. I rigged up an OTI jigging rod with a circle hook and was pitching live baits to the dolphin which was extremely fun. The biggest we nailed was 36 pounds. The dolphin left us alone so we headed back to the rig and started tuna fishing. Brennan hooked up on a 70 pounder and put it in the boat pretty quickly. We tried a little longer but with the fish box mostly full we headed back in soon after. These were some of the happiest guys I have even seen with their fish.
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/mangosnap/20081109_2.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/mangosnap/20081109_3.jpg[/IMG]
The next two days I had Dale Stevens and his friends along. We hit up the shrimpboats for no luck and then headed long. First live bait in the water was a 60 pound yf in the box. After that we couldnt buy a bite on a livie. Someone threw a popper close to the rig and here the dolphin came again. They wouldnt hit the popper but we pitched them some chunks and quickly boated three nice bulls and one smaller dolphin. Started to chunk for tuna and after a couple dry runs we hooked up and broke one off. Then we started picking away at them. We put three more yf in the box. We got all our hits on 60 pound frenzy flouro. We headed back in with 4 yf and 4 dolphin.
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/mangosnap/20081109_5.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o202/capthoop/2008pics078-1.jpg[/IMG]

I had the same group on friday and I was hoping we could beat the front back in and still get some fish. Well we got caught by the front and didnt catch fish. That was a heck of a double whammy. I stayed in close along the shelf and hit 4-5 rigs that generally produce fish this time of year and never even marked a tuna.

Heartbreak Rig Trip

macala — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 23:19:29 GMT

I've had many lost fish before but this trip really hurt. I had two family members (Dell, Hans) and Angelo Depaola. We went to the rigs looking for YFT and swordfish. We arrive at the Marlin Rig and see fish 100-200 ft down but not actively feeding. We then move to Ram Powell and see the same. On to Horn Mtn and we see 5 other boats there. I didn't see any yft on the surface but they were marking on the sonar very close to the rig. We set up a chunk line and immediately hook up two nice rainbow runners. Not what we were looking for. Hans then hook up a nice 70-80 lbs Yft and loose him at the boat.:banghead This theme continues. Dell then hook another nice fish and the hook puts. :banghead Angelo being a nice guy hooks up on a really nice fish on his Torsa 30 for an hour+ and I loose the 120+ lbs Yft in the motors.:sick

I don't have words to describe our feelings and we had a hard time looking each other in the eye. It was midnight and we had to choose to stay or go looking for a swordfish.

Good thing we chose to go swordfishing because we woke up the next morning without a bite.:banghead I'm so pissed I start reeling in one of the lines and the deep line goes slack. It's 6:00am with the sun up and I'm thinking I'm tangled with the other line. I reel up the line and it's not tangled. I look at our position and we're in 1200 ft of water. I start reel in the 600 ft deep line and I get to the weight. I undo the weight with the glow light on the surface. That's when the swordfish wakes up and sounds 500+ ft deep. We fight it for 45 mins and what a trip saver!:grouphug

Feeling relieved, we run to the Marlin Rig and as I'm telling Dell where I encountered the sperm whale last month, it appeared again. Can you believe that? I felt like a whale guiding stud at this point. I'm even naming the thing if I see that whale again.

We arrive at the Marlin Rig to find the Yft not very active but present. Hans breaks in this new Stella on a topper with a yft and also looses one too. We see a nice Blue Marlin working so Dell catches a nice small Bft and we bump troll it. 20 mins later he nails the tuna and Dells on it for 2 minutes and you can guess what happened next. The marlin had the whole tuna in his mouth almost taking drag on a 50w but the circle hook could not find the fish. We let it eat for almost three minutes before locking down. We saved the tuna as to remember our pains.

We ended the trip with 2 yft, 4 bft, 2 rainbow runners, 1 swordfish and we lost 4 yft, 1 blue marlin,1 mahi mahi. Had a blast and I had the best grouper tacos of my life.

YFT are goin off at Thunderhorse

Gump — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 00:21:56 GMT

Just a quick report for those who are interested. We have been conducting an ROV job out here at Thunderhorse for over a week, and the YFT are as thick as I have ever seen. Most of the fish are in the 80 - 120 range, with some that are bigger. Due to the fact that we are not allowed to fish off of this vessel, I figured I would pass the info along to those who may be considering a trip.

Current weather conditions:
Wind = NE @ 5-10 kts
Seas = 1-3 ft
Current = to the NNW @ .4 kts
Water = Blue

Gump...Out

Yellowfin at the Rigs 11-7-08

Outa Line II — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 18:17:08 GMT

My partner just got back from the deepwater rigs and it was good! 6 yellowfin with 3 of them over 100 and jumped off a big blue. Had 2 wahoo on, but lost both. All the blackfin you wanted! Will post more when I get the full report from Allen.

See ya on the rip,

Rick

BIG YELLOWFIN

motivator — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 23:11:34 GMT

Made a great trip with Kelly and James this past weekend.We went long and it was a good choice.After making 60 perfect baits we made some stops along the way and saw no activity.Finally got to where we needed to be.Had a small dolphin on and a large marlin came up to eat it and ended up with the bird instead of the dolphin.Needless to say he broke the line.Things were starting to look up when the supply boat got on the PA and told us to vacate the area due to a diver in the water.Next stop and tunas are flying everywhere.Get baits in the water and instant hookup.Then a double,another double.Things are going crazy with only 3 people on the boat.We are catching dolphin and tuna as fast as we can get baits in the water.Finally the big fish start coming.We have a 65lb a 75lb and a 90lb when the big fish hits.After an hour and several trips around the motors we finally get the death circles.Two perfect gaffs to the head and there is an extra 155lbs in the boat.Boat 1 more fish in the 80lb range.After making room in the box we heat up some dinner and pull off for some sleep.Wake up a little late and worried about missing the AM bite.Pull up and the first bait is in the water about 1 minute when the reel starts screeming.Had a supply boat pull up and he looks like he wants to be where we are.Hail on the radio.No problem he is holding and said he would wait for us to slide in between him and the rig.Thanks.I knew we had a good fish so I went down for a pot of coffee and quick shower.Come back up and still no color.Finally after an hour and a half we release a 120+.Not much room in the box and we definately have plenty of tuna steaks.We start missing dolphin on live bait and with no tuna activity we decide to troll.We had a hit on almost every pass.1 wahoo,couple of barracuda and several dolphin.Long ride home so we leave them biting.We ended the trip with 13 yellowfin tuna(8 released),10?dolphin,30? blackfin,1 wahoo,1barracuda,and 1 close encounter with a marlin. Can not wait to get back on them.Saw 1 other fishing boat all weekend.I can not post pictures.

Offshore Venice LA

Capteddie — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 09:19:16 GMT

Ran a trip offshore yesterday with JIm and his wife Liz. They wanted to be back in early so we stayed in close adn fished hard while we could. The first stop only produced a small yf on an oti jigging setup. We had more spot in the ocean to try before we had to head in. We got there and put a few skipjacks in the boat for chum and went to work. On about the third drift a chunkline went off and we boated a small yf. Threw it in the box and were about to setup for another drift when my deckhand Capt Lee shouted marlin under the boat. I looked down and sure enough there was a lit up white marlin under the boat. We hooked up a livie and pitched it out and the white came from underneath the boat and charged the hardtail. Made a circle around it with its dorsal out the water and then engulfed it. Let the fish eat for a second and came tight with a solid hookup. We fought it for about 15 minutes before Lee got a hand on the bill and we took a couple quick shots and let it go back for some future action on someone elses rod. We caught one shark on the next drift and called it a day and headed to the house.

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/mangosnap/20081030_1.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/mangosnap/20081030_2.jpg[/IMG]

10/27 Pain Train Fishing Trip

Chris Hood — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 09:35:49 GMT

I got a phone call Sunday afternoon from a friend of mine asking if I could leave in a few hours to go out tuna fishing and come back Monday afternoon. I told him I couldnt because I had to work. Later that evening I drove down to Sportsman Marina to see if they were still going and they were loading up the boat and were about to head out. At this point I couldnt resist and had to join. Twenty minutes later I was back at the marina stepping on the boat with a bag of clothes, my tuna popping spinner setup and my marlin trolling lures.

We cleared Perdido Pass jetties about 10:30 and set a course for the Marlin and enjoyed the slick calm conditions on our way out. We got to the Marlin and flipper was there in force. There were a few yellowfin mixed in with them. We threw poppers for about 20 minutes and had a few fish miss our poppers. The dolphin were following our poppers right to the boat which is something I have never seen...definately an erie feeling. Anyways, we decided we should continue south and headed to Horn Mountain.

We got to Horn Mountain and it was going on to say the least. There were 75-150 pound fish blowing up on squid all around the rig. We started throwing poppers at them and immediately boated a few fish with a few break offs mixed in. Then we hooked two fish in the 120-140 pound range on poppers. One of the other anglers hooked up first and unfortuantely I hooked up with the second fish. I don't think I have ever had my a$$ handed to me like that tuna did. It was awful....I fought the fish for about an hour and a half and had it just out of gaffing range for about 15 minutes but lost it when one of the death circles put the line in the running gear. The other angler was still hooked up though and about an hour later lost his fish in the running gear as well after having the fish just out of gaffing range for about 20 minutes. Oh well!

It was getting daylight at this point so we put trolling baits in the water and managed a 10-15 pound dolphin and a blackfin. The wind started to pick up at this point and within an hour we were facing 4-6 foot seas that increased to about 10 foot shortly thereafter. It was awful! We were in a 54 foot bertram and were still getting pounded. One of the big 300 foot Swess crew boats called us on the radio and asked if we were fishing a tournament with a tone of "those guys must be crazy" in his voice as he told us he was headed in until the weather improved. It took us 12 agonizing hours to get home but did end up with a little meat in the fish box. Final count 3-60-80 pound yellowfin, 1- black fin, 1-15-20 pound dolphin, 46 screws, 1 broken outrigger halyard, 1 very close call electrical fire and several cuts, scrapes, bumps and bruises.

Offshore venice LA

Capteddie — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 16:46:10 GMT

I fished with Rex Paul and his crew from Florida on saturday and sunday. We headed out with the idea of big fish on shrimpers. Well the shrimpers were there but the big fish werent. The first shrimp boat was in dirty water and was covered in big sharks. I dont think I would have lasted long had I fell in the water. they were all over the surface sucking in bycatch. Rex nailed a nice blackfin on an OTI jig and my new OTI jiggin rod. That rod is a beast of a jigging rod compared to teh shimanos. WE picked up a total of three blacks off that boat before we started heading out and ran into another shrimper in cleaner water this one was slapass loaded with jumbo blacks. We caught a few on chunks and live bait but the most fun with them was flipping livies on the oti jigging rod up to the transom of the shrimpers and just hold on as the blacks were tearing it up. It was dissapointing to not find any of the yellows on the boat but we still had a blast and bought 16 jumbo blackfin back to the dock.

On day two we decided to head to the rigs. Made the run out to the east only to find plenty of porpoises at the first floater and no fish. Ran west from there to another rig and found nothing but small tunas on oti jigs. At this point it was around noon and we still hadnt had a decent fish on so we ran south from there to another rig and this was where we found some fish. Lost a good one right off the bat and then picked up a couple football yellows and some nice dolphin on chunks. It was getting late and the last two drifts produced a pair of 60 pound yf so we called it a day and beat it in just before dark.

[IMG]http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o202/capthoop/2008pics070-1.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o202/capthoop/2008pics071-1.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o202/capthoop/2008pics072.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o202/capthoop/2008pics073-1.jpg[/IMG]

another one for the memory banks-Grand Isle tuna

captain william wall — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 18:59:57 GMT

Yesterday dawned with a new promise and another opportunity to see what the ocean would let me have. I had kenneth verdin on board along with his friends adam and gabe. Kenneth and adam had made a trip with me earlier in the summer and we caught 12 yellowfin in 2hrs 30min, So I had a tall order to fill. I made my way out in a **** poor sloppy 15-20mph breeze straight out of the northeast. The seas were quartering on the bow which made for some loud prop noise now and then. I made my way to where I had been doing well on tuna, only to find the water looking like a fish box full of Yoo-hoo chocolate milk. Oh well, press on. Made a short move and the water conditions improved to a possible 7 out of ten. I gave the order to cut some chunks and get ready. I hadn't pulled twenty feet of line off the 80w when this tuna comes out of nowhere and boils on it like no tomorrow pushing the chunk up to the surface. He did it again and this time he found something pointy in his jaw. That fish pulled hard for about 200yds and the line parted. S##**!!!!!M!!!!!#####t! I snapped back to reality louder than the 100lb mono and grabbed another setup. I repeated the process again and the offering was sucked up like a $100 bill on main street. This fish pulled waaaaayyy into the JB braid backing and the **** hook pulled. OK, WE GONNA DO DIS AGAIN! Made another drift on the chunkie and fish on. This fish was strange. He initially pulled off 100yrds and settled down to a straight up and down dogfight that michael vick would've enjoyed! After and hour kenneth was letting the rest of us know what his opinion was about the fish and whispered something about the fishe's momma. It all came to an end in death circles and a perfectly placed gaff shot and kenneth was looking at the largest tuna he had ever caught. After that we fished for another four hours repeating the process with no luck at all. Made a move again and it proved to be the right one. Fish numero ono proved to be at little bit meaner than the first and in a little over a hour we put the gaff in him sealing up the day and calling Miller time. Fish number 1 -164lbs. Fish number 2 -178lbs. Awesome time had on the "ALL IN". The season is shaping up nicely with some nice fish. Give me a call to book your next trip offshore.
Captain William Wall
Pelagic Charters llc
1.225.454.5365
Pelagic Charters, LLC Home

Late rig report from 10-16,10-17

Outa Line II — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 13:34:30 GMT

Headed out early last Thursday morning with the Marlin Rig to be the first stop. Decided to put lines in short of Marlin on a small weed line (seas were 5 ft and had a partial sick crew by now). Good choice for we were able to boat 3 very nice wahoo and 3 average size dolphin. Decided to head further south and while heading to Marlin the flat line goes off in a somewhat lazy fashion. Don't really know what we have, as the fish stays up top near the surface. After a short fight we get the fish to the boat and realize it's a big yellowfin. In less than 10 minutes I stick the gaff in a solid 100 lber. What a good ending to a bizarre fight. Anyway, on down to Marlin and there is nothing going on. Decision is made to head to Neptune for the late evening. Bad choice for we only caught one blackfin. Around 7:00 pm we decide to push to the Ram. By now the seas are down to 3 ft, wind has layed to 5-10 kt and the crew is alive again. Worked the Ram all night only to see 3 schoolie yellows bust. Saw another boat hook up chunking early Friday morning. At daylight (with 2 foot rollers and no wind) I put out the tuna spread and we trolled the rig with no luck until 8:00. Then it happens. The shotgun goes off and the drag on the 50w is screaming like I have never seen it do. By the time I help the angler get the rod in the harness we have less than 50 yds on the spool and the fish is headed to the rig. Were thinking don't get in the chain and Steve is backing down hard. Some line is gained and the fish turned a little so we won this round. The angler ask me to take the rod, so I did and we gained 300 or so yards back and got the fish out into open water. Since I am mating I have to pass it on to another person. We are thinking that we have a mongo yellowfin for we had not seen anything yet. Fish stays high in the column as the first yellowfin did. The rod was passed a few more times and Steve finally gets a look at the fish after 25 minutes. Capt. Steve yells big Blue Marlin!!!! WOW this should not happen on 80 lb leader. Being very gentle I was able to actually touch the leader and realized we had a 400+ lber on that is not ready to be billed by any means. And away she goes and it's 50 minutes before we get her boatside again. By this time the entire crew is wore out from reeling. Got her to the boat 5 more times before she let me get her bill. Soon after I billed her the leader broke and away she swam. Alan took pictures with my phone but, did not save them. Jack does have video and hopefully we can get pictures from it. The fish appeared to be in the 115" range and was the new boat's first billfish. Time to deploy the 7 line spread as we push NE toward the hill. Not long afterwards a 20# dolphin shows up and the hook is pulled. Next comes Mr. Barracuda and we can't get him off the hook. Decision made to troll a little longer when a monster wahoo shows up to eat the flatline. Fights on for a minute or so and the hooks pull. Looked to be good 70 lber. Hit the head of the lure and did not get a good set. Time to go, for the storm and wind are coming. A following sea home, fueled, fish cleaned and in the slip by 4:00. There's nothing better.

The Lord has blessed us again, no doubt!!!!

See ya out there,

Rick :usaflag

outta here 10/20?/08

flyliner — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 21:03:25 GMT

We left Destin Monday about noon and arrived at Petronious just before dark. Saw a lot of made up grass on the west end of the steps. Ran past it so we could make bait at the rig before dark. Fished P. at sunset and then some, no actiion, ran to Marlin, some blackfins, eased to Ram Powell, lots of flippers but had one good bite, a 100 lbr, plenty of blackfins, eased back to Marlin, more blackfiins, back to P town, more blackfins. After daylight searched and foound the grass west of steps (450 to 550 foot of water runnning ne to sw). Produced one 30 lb wahoo. Trolled back to nipple without a bite. Pretty water throughout with the best water west of the dumping grounds. Tally, one 100 lb yellowfin, more 15 lb blackfins than you care to cut, a decent tuna, great weather and a killer time.

currently tuna is top in the overnight and so is wahoo

Venice offshore with Relentless Sportfishing 10/17

Capt. Mike Ellis — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 11:07:44 GMT

We are finaly into our fall season which means squeezing trips in between fronts. I fished a group of dentist from Oklahoma on friday with the forcast giving us a pretty narrow window. But fortunately the front waited until I had a couple of fish left to clean before it hit. The paln was for tuna, there are plenty of real big fish on shrimp boats but plenty of boats fishing them so we decided to make a long run south to where I had been fishing and not fight the crowd. The one thing I didn’t plan on was no current but we still managed to get everyone a yellowfin. Along with feeding about a hundred baracudas in the process they always come out farther from the rig when there is no current. We had just finishhed boxing up a yellowfin when I thought I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. So I walked back to the transome to find a 300lb plus blue sticking his bill up the exhaust of my port engine. I went itno overdrive and pitched him a bait which he ate while I still had the leader in my hand. I don’t think that counts as a release technicialy. But still pretty cool. Anyway I feed him three times before he finaly got the hook only to throw it on the first run/jump. After that everything just died even the cudas. So we cleaned up and headed to the house and hoping to run across something in the 70 miles back to the pass. The first little break had a very weak broken grassline on it. Throw out a livebait only to have a very small blue but more than likely a white come and look at it but no bite he just faded off. With two billfish encounters for the day I told the guys the next one we would catch. With that over we continud on and hit a real nice rip about 30 miles from the pass. I went up front a threw a popper and the water turned blue and green with dolphin. These were not the jumbo models but solid 8-12lb fish. I used the rest of my livebaits along with poppers to put 12-14 in the boat in pretty quick order. But the activity with the dolhin brought us our third encounter with a blue. He came in from under the boat and smacked a dolphin that I was going to throw back. This is where I made a dumb mistake. I pulled the dolphin in the boat and put a livebait on the hook only to have the blue go crazy looking for the dolphin I just took from him. So this is my dumb move. I took the livebait off and picked the dolphin up and threw him to the blue. But I forgot to put the hook in him. So we got to watch the blue chase and thrash the dolphin and get us wet since all this was ten feet from the boat. I could of free gaffed the first and second blue that’s how close they were. What a dumb move on my part for not hooking that dolphin. Aftert that we decided we had enough fish in the box and with the sky darkening to the north of us with the approaching front. We hooked it up and ran back to the marina. We only got a little wet as the wind and rain held off until we were just about done. We had a pretty good day and all of the icechests were filled up for the trip back to Oklahoma with happy anglers.
Capt. Mike

10/17 Bodacious report

Downtime2 — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 21:45:23 GMT

Departed Palafox Marina and hit the pass just at daylight loaded with all 30's. Jeff and Tony joined us on this trip too. Headed down to the west side of the Nipple and fished south on the contour. Seas were running about 3 foot. All in swell though. Stayed that way most of the day. Fished till about 1300 without a serious bite. Only one knockdown. Small dolphin probably. Jeremy spotted a pile of rope floating. Went by it, probably a dozen tripletail over 6-8 pounds, a pile of smaller ones, Tony spotted 2 nice dolphin and a bunch of smaller ones. We be thankin'..."Oh yeah, let the games begin!". First pass, picked up a 25#ish hooter. Back in the distance about 300 yards after we passed it, a blue exploded on the fish that ventured to far from the rope! We got the lines back in and headed back. Had a double knockdown on small dolphin, neither found the hooks. Couple passes later, a white came charging through the spread on the flat lines. A few seconds later, the starboard rigger pops. Hooked up the white. Had time to get everything clear and Bo started fighting the fish. It dumped about 150 yards of line on the first run. Couple minutes into the fight, it throws the hook. Initally, we thought it was running towards the boat and powered up. But it had pulled the hook. We could see the lure skipping on the surface. But, just a quick as we slowed down to reel it in, damn rod goes down again! Nice 35-40#ish hooter had picked it up! Boated it. Got another that looked like it's twin a little later. I have to confess, I made the sloppiest gaff shot I have ever made on it. Actually gaffed the hoo about 10 inches from the tail. I found out it is true, a thousand "atta-boys" can be wiped out by one "Awww Shit!!". Trolled a couple more hours to no avail. Headed in around 1600. Got in that nice little zephyer of wind about 14 miles out. So much for the nice water. Bumped our way on in with a nice light shower to wash the salt off. All in all, a great time.

Grande Tuna

captain william wall — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 15:36:14 GMT

Yesterday's trip was on a private boat out of Grand Isle. On board was cody,kyle and their friend jacob aboard cody's brand new 36 Invincible. These guys had never caught a yellowfin tuna and wanted to see what it was about. We blew out about daylight to three to four footers and as we ventured farther out we let it roll. I pulled back the reigns once i saw what i was looking for and started to chum. I was chumming for about five minutes when i looked down and there was a yellowfin in the 150 class. I feed him again this time with a hook and it was off to the races. That fish ran off about three hundred yards and pulled the hook! oh well, let's dance again!
Repositioned the boat and it was blackfin after blackfin.Jumbo models 15-25lbs. Made another move and started the process over again. This time it was at least 10 or so extra large fatty's and hooked up again. This time it stuck. 1hr. and 30min
later cody is looking at his first yellowfin in the 130 class. His eyes were as big as a plate and the smile proved it. Now it was kyles turn. Started the process over again and weeded thru the blackfin and waalaa! Hookup number two! Short while later kyle puts his first yellowfin in the boat. This fish was in the 120 class. Cool deal. After that it slowed for a couple of hours. I would get them up but they would loose interest quick. Made another move late in the fourth quarter with the fat lady warming up and it proved to be the right one. I started chuming and on que 10 to 15 yellowfin in the 150 class or better came up right next to the boat. These fish were splashing the side of the boat eating chum in the blue water. I chunked a bait and it was immediately taken by a fish around 100lb. Jacob was fighting that fish and i kept chumming. I looked over and there was godzilla right under the boat. I calmly threw a piece of chunk over and he came up the side of the boat and snatched it. I was trying to keep my cool and calmly threw a few more pieces along with one with a hook. He came right up and i think he winked at me when he ate it. He went total bizerk and proceeded to head south. We boated the other fish and fought his fish for the next two hours. Cody felt like he was up to the task and kept at it and did a great job. We boated the fish and ran back to the pass at 60mph! That boat is really fast. Mission accomlished for three no longer tuna virgins. The fished weighed as follows 187lbs, 134lbs, 129lbs 110lbs. These guys will be back again! The fishing is primo right now as long as mother nature cooperates. Give me a call to book your next trip.
Captain William Wall
Pelagic Charters
1.225.454.5365
Venice/Grand Isle
33T Contender

Openings

captain william wall — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 17:02:17 GMT

Heys guys. I have 27,28,29th open if anyone wants to get in on the action. Should be good. Let me know. Thanks
Captain William Wall
Pelagic Charters
1.225.454.5365

late rig report 10/10-10/11

finsandhorns — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 08:28:17 GMT

first time for us at the rigs didn't know what to expect or exactly how to fis them but we decided to give it a shot. left panama city about 8:30 headed to gulf breeze to launch after stopping a hundread times finally arived at the boat ramp not the one we wanted to go to but a ramp non the less ( foot of three mile ) wasn't easy launching a 25' cape. got to the patronis about 4:30 it looked like they were pumping or somthing so we headed to the marlin got there and hooked up with some blackfin fished it for a while, after a while of catching fish there we headed overe to the neptune , want'ed to go to the ram powell but they had a two mile buffer so headed to the neptune showed fish there but they wouldn't hit went back to the marlin cought more blackfin. at around midnight or there after we were all tiered but didn't know where the moring bouys were so we pulled up current and driffted back past the marlin did that till day light all the time keeping a line in the water for a swordy but llike i said this was or first time so i imagine my sword fish rig was not very appealing since i just threw somting together with a light. after day broke we were so tired we decided to head back goodthing we did , it got ugly quick took 7 hours to get back to the ramp seas were big. anyway had a good time want to go back on beteer condintions and more knowledege of what were doing and were we can tie up total count on blackfin 25 lost have that to sharks.

Take a Minute-Save Some Billfish

Chris Hood — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 18:29:15 GMT

Just got this email from The Billfish Foundation. Although in Mexico, this issue influences the pelagic bluewater species we target off the gulf coast. Read below and follow the link. It literally takes thirty seconds to complete.

TBF is asking for your help in pressing our fight against recent action by Mexico's fisheries agency to allow for a bycatch of sailfish, dorado, marlin and other sport fishing species in the shark longline fishery (Nom-029). Senator Luis Coppola of Los Cabos is championing our cause in the Mexican Senate. He wants to hear from billfish conservationists around the world showing their support to repeal the bycatch allowances.

Please visit one of the Sea Watch hosted websites below and choose an email letter to send Senator Coppola. The letters are very simple to modify and can be personalized as you please. This will only take a minute of your time, but will make a world of difference to the fish and sportfishing! Thank you for taking a moment to participate in this important task.

http://www.seawatch.org/mail_campaign/bycatch_letter.php

off shore

grizzly123 — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 19:52:44 GMT

Im heading out of destin this weekend how is the bite going around the spur? And what are the water conditions looking like? Thanks

Offshore venice La

Capteddie — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 17:39:57 GMT

I fished fri and sat with a couple of fun groups. I had Brian Wesneske and his friends on fri. we started out by making live bait and catching one football yf on that. That was slow so we made the switch to chunking and it was on. Using frenzy 60 flouro and 7/0 circle hooks we quickly put 11 more yf in the box before we decided to make a move and look for some bigger tunas hopefully. It was one of those days when the plan worked. The next stop we put a 60 pound fish in on the first drift. We made another drift and doubled up this time putting another 60 pounder in the box and landing a 125 after about a 45 minute fight. we called it a day after that with 15 yf in the box and one dolphin.

I had Tim Gilmore and his group on the boat on sat. There were 4 kids and 2 adults. I figured it would be easy to go get some more footballs for the kids to fight. Wrong didnt even get a bite at the first rig. Moved to my plan b and still no bites. I think I made it to plan d before I had a nibble. We found a shrimpboat and it was game on from there. The first two casts of poppers yielded a double hookup on big blackfins. There were also yf in the mix as well and we hooked and boated a 90 pounder before some big boys showed up and taught us a lesson. One fish came up tailwrapped and broke off at the boat. It was easily a 150 plus. Another fish actually ripped a tiagra 30 off of the reel seat. I took it in to my tackle guy today and he mentioned that he had not seen that happen yet. should be covered under warranty but it cost us a stud of a fish.

After that I broke out the 50s and we put a 140 pound yf in the cooler and called it a day. We ended up pulling 16 bf tuna and 2 yf off the boat. most of the blacks came on topwater poppers.

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/mangosnap/004-3.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/mangosnap/005-4.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/mangosnap/007-4.jpg[/IMG]

Walk on charters starting Oct. 17th

Capt. Mike Ellis — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 13:19:24 GMT

I have decided to start doing walk on charters. Recently I have had a bunch of calls from guys that only had one or two in there group and are looking for a few more to make the trip a happen. I am offering the trips at $475 a man with a mininium of four on the trip and of course a max of six. I am going to start running these trips on Fridays. Everyone needs a three day weekend every once and awhile. All fish will be split between every angler on board. But I will leave that that portion up for you guys to handle. The only other expense is a fishing license for $5 and whatever gratuity you see fit. To hold your spot all you need to do is give me a call and make your reservation.

Lil Kahuna 10/9-10/10 overnighter

TCAT — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 08:41:53 GMT

With a last minute improvement in the forecast on Thursday we made a spur of the moment decision to head offshore and see if we find some tuna. Left OB around 3PM and headed for the Marlin Rig. We stoped around the 250 rigs to make some bait. Made it to the Marlin just around sunset. Live baited, chunked, jigged...nothing. Sea Spray showed up made a few passes and quickly left. We marked nothing on bottom machine and decided to leave as it was dead. Next headed to the Beer Can where we actually marked fish on the machine. Managed a few blackfin but no yellows. Sharks showed up in force and made fishing miserable. Headed to Petronius and the blackfins were thick. Could've caught blackfin till your arms fell off. To my suprise sharks were'nt a problem, but still no yellows. By this time it was 11:30PM and we were tired. Headed just off Petronius to drift for some swords.

Got a few miles away from P-town and put out the baits. Actually put out the first squid and while I was bent over rigging the second rod the first rod I just put out makes a wicked jerk which grabs our attention. Next we see a sword jump clear out of the water with the LP light dangling. We try take up the slack but it seems the sword got tangled in the main line which broke. Put out the other rod which I was rigging and ten minutes later bam another fish on and swords a leaping. Hook pulled. The next four hours we saw steady action. Ended up catching four swords out of seven. Just about every sword hooked jumped. It was wild. We were tired and would try after setting our baits to relax and just as my eyelids would close I'd hear a splash and would jump to check the rods. Two of the swords would have measured but we decided to let em go. The other two were just pups. We did hook a nice fish on a live hardtail. I would have liked to seen that one. Also the first seemed decent but perception always tells you fished that are losts are monsters. Here's a short video of the swords caught.

The sun finally came up and we didn't get a lick of sleep thanks to the non-stop sword action. Awesome. Put the trolling spread out and made a few laps around p-town. Nothing. Water was absolutely beautiful. Trolled north to the 100 fathom and followed it east. Around the steps we pick up a 30lb wahoo.

Headed in around noon. Marlin, beer can, p-town all in great blue water. Just off p-town water was full of squid and flyers. Sword action off the hook. Water along the 100-fathom at the steps and west was blue and scattered flyers. No lines. Just some widely scattered grass.

Keith, Lil Kahuna

Im Back from PV...

TITLEWAVE — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 12:25:49 GMT

see full report here....

http://www.bloodydecks.com/forums/mainland-mexico-fishing-reports-discussion/122845-pv-oct-4th-oct-11th.html

GOOD REPORT FROM SPUR ON THE WAY!

badazzchef — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 22:09:23 GMT

Will post a book tomorrow

Late Report Oct 3rd and 4th

Downtime2 — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 13:44:41 GMT

Fished with Richard, his Daddy and Gary on Friday. For it to be 1 foot per forecast, it was a bit bumpy early. Even saw a waterspout. Figured they was done by now. Trolled and trolled and trolled out of Destin. Got several short strikes. Caught a nice little bull dolphin and a blackfin. Had a blue behind the spread and wouldn't eat. The 35 Everglades has got to be the sweetest outboard I have ever been on. Well laid out. Trip 300 Zukes gave it just the right amount of pep too. Exellent host and company.

Saturday, fished Bodacious with the regular crew. Started before I got there with Hal coming down the ramp at Palafox with an armload of Popeyes chicken and all the trimmings. He slips, and all over the dock it goes. There is a slight possibility alcohol was a contributing factor. Got out to where we wanted to go and put lines in. After Perry finished getting his fill of blackfins, we moved on. Jeremy was messing with the teaser reels and managed to pour his cup of dip remainders over his own head. That was gross...even to me. Hal forgot his sunglasses. Later that afternoon we managed a nice sail on 30# tackle. Congrats to Bo on that one. Felt good to grab a bill. Been a while. Day started out a bit bumpy wound up goregous. Back home by 2015.

Both trips were a great time. My gratitude to both. Sorry, no pics....

ram powell trip 10/3

ateupwitit — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 16:57:21 GMT

headed out friday night out of Dauphin Is about 800pm headed south for the Ram Powell in search of tuna. Made it there and commenced to jig for BFT with diamond and butterfly jigs boated 5. We cut up a BF for bait fished about 100' and boated 2 YFT both about 75lbs. We got cut off several times not sure by what :banghead can tuna bite thru floro leader? The bite turned off for both species. The porpoises were thick as I've ever seen. They caused problems in the morning:banghead:banghead we trolled ballyhoos but the porpoises would hit tail until it knocked the bait off, they're smart.

Decided to fish the Alps before heading home and boated 2 AJs 60lbs and 30lbs. We searched but failed to find any weedlines. Sorry no pics just got home from the trip. Water was cobalt blue. Great trip seas were good but getting rougher before we left.

Rig report 10/3-10/4

Meagans Choice — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 22:03:04 GMT

The bite was on Friday night from 8-11 PM at the Marlin. We caught three yellowfin 60-65 lb on small live hardtails one right after the other. Several other boats were catching them as well. After the bite turned off we headed to the Ram Powell and saw many boats there. The west side of the rig had a large school of porpises. We had a big bite there but the fish broke off, ugh!!! We wondered if it could have possibly been a porpise. BTW, does anyone know if the yellowfin hang with or are they bothered by the porpises? I heard one boat caught a couple of 100 lb yellowfin there. We thought about going to the steps to swordfish, but instead went to check out Horn. We caught several blackfin at Horn, but no yellowfin. We swordfished there the rest of the night, but had no hits. A buddy of ours caught a 160+ sword at the steps Fri. night as well. Congrats Jeff on the nice sword!!! The next morning the bite was off at Horn and the Marlin. We then headed over to the elbow to try some bottom fishing on some private spots but the weather turned sour. We had a rough ride coming back home to Daybreak, but can't complain since we had the three nice YFT on ice. Thanks to Mark and Tim for a great time. BTW Tim, keep that mojo working!! I'll try to add some pictures. <img src="http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/DSCN0753.jpg"> <img src="http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/DSCN0754.jpg"> <img src="http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/DSCN0751_2.jpg"> <img src="http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/DSCN0749_1.jpg"> <img src="http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/DSCN0748_3.jpg"> <img src="http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/DSCN0752_4.jpg">

Petronis 10/3 - 10/4

ajfishn — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 14:45:55 GMT

Took my newly purchased boat to the Petronis for the first time. As everyone know the seas could not have been better. Got out there around 9:00 pm and caught a few blackfin until around midnight. Decided to pull away and take a couple hour nap. When we came back the blackfin where biting much better.

Started trolling just before sunrise. We got 3 quick bites as the sun was comming up, 3 small yellowfin. The yellowfin were busting for about a minute and then disapeared. Trolled for about another hour with now luck.

Decided to troll to the 252's, we caught 2 skipjack tuna on the way and then got a huge bite on the long rigger. Turned out to be a 60 lb wahoo, great way to top off the trip.

Ended up with 13 blackfin, 2 skipjack, and the wahoo.

Most fun I have ever had on my own boat, can't wait to do it again. Hopefully will have some pictures tonight.

Jake

26 World Cat, Twin 150 Yamaha 4 Strokes

Bodacious Report 10/4

Xanadu — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 15:49:04 GMT

With weather as it was, we decided to head to some shallow water and give a try for fall a couple fall billfish. The decision was made to leave early Saturday and to fish 50s on the corners and all 30s with smaller lures on the riggers and shotgun so we made sure the small stuff was ready and Trip loaded the boat with peashooters instead of our usual artillery. In preparation for a great day of fishing, I decided to have a drinking meeting at the office Friday after work and then to head to Sake Cafe for sushi. Anyway, its a long story, but Saki was a bad choice and I got to pay for it Saturday.

Anyway, I got dropped off at the Marina late Friday night and on my way to the boat, I slipped on the ramp at Palafox and dropped $40 worth of Popeyes chicken and red beans. I saved the beer, but I wouldn't need it Saturday anyway. Perry was already asleep when I got on board and Trip followed an hour or so later after setting off the alarm at my house and waking up the wife and neighborhood.

Sometime before daylight, Creech, Bo and Wade climbed on and set us off for the NE side of the nipple where we put lines in about 630. After a fairly uneventful beginning, we ran across a shrimp boat pulling nets and caught a couple blackfins and talked with Midnight Run on the radio. After an hour or two of boredom we started tinkering with the spread and killing time until about 1pm we got a bite on the long rigger and hooked a nice sized sailfish on a 30. Bo fought the sail for about 5 minutes while we cleared and got the tag ready. Trip wired the little fella and Wade tagged him cleanly. After removing the hook, we set him free and healthy with Bo's first sailfish on Bodacious and another few points for our club tournament.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful and we called it a day an hour before sundown and kicked it 26kts back to Palafox. It was a good fall trip and while more fish would have been appreciated you have to love flipping channels on the sat tv and alternating btwn FSU and the Bama game while billfishing in sight of condos.

Good times!

Offshore Venice La

Capteddie — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 15:50:30 GMT

Finally got out on the water after quite a long while off. Ran out on a cutomers 31 contender and had some beautiful conditions. We hit a close in floater first with no luck before we headed long. Looked around teh rig a little and put the baits out. While we were letting the first bait out a 60 pound yf jumped out of the water and ate the bait. About 10 seconds later the other bait got hit as well and we were doubled up and very happy at that point. We landed both of these fish and continued to pick away at the tuna until we had 7 in the boat all from 60-70 pounds. We called it a day and rolled to the dock at 45 mph.

On day two it was almost a repeat as we doubled up on our first two baits out again. We landed both fish adn then it slowed down a little again. We put two more yf in the box and decided to header to some different places. No more yf hit the box but we did get 4 nice dolphin to add to it.

On monday I went out with my friend Ron on his boat the "Hammer" This was the first day out of the three we didnt double up on the first two baits. Although the first bait did produce a nice 60 pound fish. We caught a couple more tuna then some debris floater by and we slayed the dolphin on it. WE pulled 25 dolphin from 10-20 pounds off of it before we let the rest of the school swim on its merry way. We headed back to the rig and caught a couple more yf before we headed to the house with 6 yf and 25 dolphin.

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/mangosnap/2008pics061.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/mangosnap/IMG_0030.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/mangosnap/IMG_0033.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/mangosnap/IMG_0038.jpg[/IMG]

tuna time on the Outta Here

flyliner — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 15:44:12 GMT

Am leaving this evening for the rigs, plan on starting at Ocean Confidence and working way back. Boat name is Outta Here and will be on VHF 68, 72 or 16. Will be the boat with loud reggae music playing. Anybody out there give me a shout and will tell what I have seen and would like to know what you have seen

thanks

Sunday Sept 9 Destin Blue Marlin

destincabo — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 13:48:52 GMT

Left Destin Sunday 6 am to glass slick seas. Heard of a good report from the Spur so we decided to give it a shot. Put lines in several miles north of the spur, water was a blended blue, not bad. Had a solid bite on the rigger lure, fish didn't hook up, came back twice but yours truly could not connect with the big lure. Most probably a whitey. Saw some scattered grass, small patches nothing substantial. Flyers were everywhere. Later in the morning we end up catching a 30 lb wahoo and 2 dolphins (25lb & 10lbs). Mid day raise a big blue in the spread and she fades off. Take a big circle and come back into the slick where we saw the fish, and the center rigger does down (blue & white islander) and we're hooked up. Steady run, no jumps, what is it? Tuna or marlin? Fish stayed in the upper water column the entire fight so we figured it had to be a blue. Our angler had never been offshore before and we have this fish hooked on a 30 wide :). Needless to say we were sweating bullets. Angler did an outstanding job. After 51 minutes, grab the leader and get the first look at our fish, nice blue marlin. Tried to get a measurement on her, was in the neighborhood of 105+ inches from the fork to the lower jaw, maybe a bit longer. Got the hook out and perfect release. Looked to be in the 400 lb class. Fish never jumped and was hooked in the upper mouth, right at the base of the bill. I've witnessed several marlin caught that never jumped and all were hooked in that same spot. Great to get one the way the water has been this year. Gustav certainly helped things out there. If Ike will stay away from us, it may stir things up some more and we might have a chance to have a good fall run of Whiteys. tight lines. Will post pics when I get them.

Venice offshore 27-28th

Capt. Mike Ellis — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 20:01:04 GMT

It was nice to finely get back in the saddle after dealing with both Gustave and then Ike. I had Anthony Michael and Jeff Fusilier in from Little Rock. After a few reschedules due to the north part of highway 23 being flooded. We hit a picture perfect weekend the biggest wave we saw all weekend was from a crewboat. On Saturday I made a decision to make a real long run to where I thought we would have the best shot at some decent tuna. A push of barely legal yellowfins came in after the hurricanes, and that is not what I wanted with only two guys onboard. The run out was pretty uneventful we did come across a huge leatherback turtle which Anthony or Jeff has never seen before. We finally got the rig only to find not much going on. But a quick check with the sounder showed some promising marks. Out went the baits it took about 15 minutes to get the first bite was a swing and a miss. The next to bites came pretty quick after that and it was a double header. But neither fish was taking much line at all. Jeff’s fish was taking the most line but still not much. Anthony had a rainbow runner, which went into the box for deep drop bait the next day. Jeff worked his fish to the boat and it was a 30” yellowfin. Not the size of fish I wanted to catch for them but at least the skunk was off the boat. On the next bite the fish was finally taking some line things were looking up. Anthony worked about a 70lb yellow to the boat after some grunting and groaning.

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Anthony%20Michael%20Tuna_1.jpg[/img]

After that I started live chumming and we quickly put two more 50-60lb fish in the boat then another 29” fish. We finished up with one more fish at 1:30 and headed to the dock. The fish were all on 60lb fluoro and 6/0 Mustad 39952 circles. One the way in about 30 miles from the pass in nasty peas green water we came across a pod of about 30 or so whales.

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/whale3_2.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Whale2_3.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/whale4_1.jpg[/img]

We were able to get scary close to them we could of scratched their backs. We shot a few pictures and left them to do whatever they were doing.

On Sunday I only had Anthony onboard he wanted to try his hand at deep dropping and I was pretty sure that nobody had hit the area I wanted to hit. So with high hopes we set off with a tight time schedule for the trip. We crossed a nice rip and made some bait just in case. About five miles from the rig we came across and pretty big patch of grass. A cast with a popper brought out the green hornets a few freebie livebaits brought out even more. Anthony wanted to take a few of the chicken dolphin home to one of his employees so we put a few in the boat. I glad we had those because at the first rig the only thing I could get to bite was sharks. After losing more rigs and lead than I wanted to we left for my backup rig. Again more sharks but at least we were getting some nice bites when we could hit bottom. I had to use 5lbs to hit the bottom in 750’ just to get past most of the sharks. Finally up comes a decent yellowedge then a couple of nice fish got us in the rig or straightened out hooks.

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Anthony%20and%20grouper_1.jpg[/img]

It was time to get Anthony back to the dock so he could get home. But with only a handful of dolphin and one grouper in the boat the schedule got thrown out. And a few more drops were made and few more decent grouper were put in the fishbox. After that we left them biting about an hour later than Anthony’s scheduled time to be at the dock.

[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/Anthony%20fish%20table%202.jpg[/img]

9-28 at the petronius

driftwood1 — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 10:38:47 GMT

We caught 3 YF the biggest one weighed 75 punds. We caught a boat load of BF. The weather could not have been better.

Deep Blue Rig Trip 9.27

Deep Blue — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 21:55:40 GMT

Having only been to the rigs several times by leaving before daylight, so we pondered a different approach. We departed Perdido Pass around 10:00 a.m. with several hardtails in the livewell and headed to the rigs with intentions of returning by midnight.

After a smooth ride out, we arrived at MP-255 in search of bait and amberjack. After 20 mins. of trying for bait we switched gears and dropped the hardtails and freestyle jigs. It wasn't long before one angler was slammed against he side with a good amberjack. Unfortunately, the rig, and fish, prevailed. This scenario repeated itself several times (at $20 per time). If we locked the drag, the fish would pull the hook; if we didn't lock the drag, the fish would break off in the rig. I'm sure there is a method to this, but I have no idea what it is...

While fighting with the amberjack, drags, and the rig, we were visited by a billfish of some sort. Not sure what brand it was, but it exploded on some baitfish on the south side of the rig. We tossed a pitch bait to her with no avail, but we did end up catching 4 almaco jacks on top water baits.

On to the Beer Can. We trolled a mixed spread around the Beer Can while watching the sonar. We hooked up to a good fish that ended up being a trophy baracuda. Didn't see many fish marking around the rig, but gave it a try slow trolling live baits. Nothing to show.

By then it was getting close to 5:00 p.m. so we headed to the Marlin. We didn't mark many fish around the Marlin, but did see a few yellowfin busting after dark and lost a wahoo at the gaff. Teeth are a bitch. We caught a few blackfin.

My father is an avid LSU fan (go easy on him) and could not stand being without the game. So...while at the Marlin he decided to find the game on a small Wal-Mart radio (I bet him he would not find any signal)...and as luck would have it...he found it and we were able to listen to the games 75 miles from Perdido Pass. I guess we were picking up a relay off the rigs, but I really have no idea. Anyone have any thoughts???

We talked to "Legendary" on the radio and they said the blackfin were slow, but hitting at Petronius. We headed that way with intentions of a quick fish and heading for the pass. When we arrived the bait was pushed to the top and the blackfin were hitting every jig that we dropped.

We ended up keeping around 10 blackfin and headed North around 10:45 to take the "Old Man" and mom back to land. It was a great trip even though we didn't catch any yellowfin. The seas were great, the sky was clear, and everyone had a great time.