March 11, 2012
Driftfishing Charters
Captain Adam and mate Joe hosted ten anglers on the driftfishing boat for our Saturday night six hour snapper trip. The team ran south for a while before deciding to anchor up in 70 feet of water. The spot they chose was the sweet spot as the anglers ended up catching 140 snappers, including muttons, yellowtails, mangroves, lanes, and a few others. They weren’t all keepers, and some had to be thrown back, but everyone brought home plenty of dinner! This definitely rates as one of the best nights of snapper fishing we have ever had.
March 18, 2012
Today Darin and I had two trips and the fishing was great. We were catching plenty of blackfin tunas in 350 feet of water. These fish were ranging from 3-8 lbs, a little on the small side, but good eating nonetheless. We also caught a few mahi-mahi in the 8-13 lb class trolling fresh ballyhoo’s and bonito strips.
On the afternoon charter our clients wanted to go sharkfishing so we went out to 350 feet of water and put out three big shark baits; two blackfin tunas and a kingfish. It wasn’t long before we got a bite on the bottom bait. This was a powerful hit, with the rod bent nearly in half. We gunned the boat ahead to set the hook as we got angler Shawn in the fighting chair. The battle was on, and 45 minutes later we had a huge hammerhead shark behind the boat. Some great pictures of this champion fish were taken, and then we tagged it and released it.
March 19, 2012
One would think that I would do something else besides fish on my day off, but today the weather was perfect for daytime swordfishing, so my friend Jack and I decided to go. We cruised out to around 1400 feet of water and at about 10:00 a.m. made our first 4 drops. There was no action, so we moved north 7 miles and reset our baits. On the fifth drop, we got a strong bite from what seemed like a good fish and we set the hook. Unfortunately, the hook pulled with the fish about 200 feet from the boat. We ran back to the same place and dropped again, and got a few more bites, but no hookups.
We did hear a great story from another angler to the south. He radioed to tell us he had hooked up a 350 lb sword that racehorsed to the boat, then jumped right onto the gunnel, halfway into the boat! Had he gotten all the way in, that green fish could have shredded the cockpit! Luckily, they were able to get the fish back into the water, wear it out, then boat it properly. We didn’t have that kind of excitement, but it was a nice day to be on the water.
