SUNDAY, MARCH 02, 2008
Stream droppin...SAILFISH on the jig
Amazing report by NCW member, "di hrd"
Sailfish, red grouper, african pompano, fire back grouper and a monster 400 lb shark!
It just keeps getting better. Leap year only comes once in four years... this trip was once in a lifetime. I had been looking for a snowy grouper spot for about two months now. Well we had electronics issues that slowed the search and no good numbers to go on. I have been working on some plotting and with the help of the internet came up with a number to look at. When we got out there yesterday the "marginal" electronics we had told us we had hit the jackpot.
Niles and Pete were the first to drop. Pete hooked up first on a 400gr glow gig. Niles hooked up shortly after on a big Nagamasa. Pete landed his first and it was a good'n, 28lbs on the boga. Niles was a lot smaller, about 10lbs. Don't feel bad for old Niles... He gets his later... in a big way. Now it's mine and Rob's turn. Didn't take long and both are hooked up. Both on 550gr glow jigs. Nither fish would challange Pete's but 12-18lbs. Dnag thirty minutes and limited out. Back to the shallow water for other BBD's.
As we are running we came up on a big grass ball. Rob spots some dolphin and the jigs go flying. Niles goes up in the tower and tells us where they are. Rob hooks the first one on the jig and me and Pete miss a couple hits. We end up catching three of the four we see. Not monsters but darn good eating. I 60' sportfisher see Niles on the tower and steams our way to within casting distance. We are bailing dolphin and they are like, what the heck is a 24' outboard with a tower doing catching dolphin on jigs 70 miles out? LOL
Checked a few more spots in the 350' range and they are all covered with jacks.
Next stop was the spot we have been catching the African Pompano's. Things are going to get interseting... Niles gets to the bottom and gets a hit... misses him... gets hit again... misses again... third time... got him. Near the top he is like "it's a jack, NO its a grouper, get him in the boat!" Rob does the honors and boats a 27lb gag for Niles... Oh but he's not done yet... not close. We pounded the gag's on this spot. All four of us had at least one nice one. Niles had the 27, I had a 20, Pete had a 17 and Rob had a 14 along with a few other.
Then it happened. Niles is dropping a 6oz Shimano Flat side and something grabs it about 30' down. Anyone who has been to an AR or just grouper fishing knows how cudas like to hang out under your boat and pick off fish. Heck we had it happen yesterday. Well Niles is like "jeez I got 25 lbs of drag and he's still taking line. We all figured he had hooked the resident cuda. When the fish came up I could see it over the motor, flashing silver. Just then Niles says " it's a cuda" when he said that I saw silver and blue. I said, It's a dolphin. We were both wrong.... It was a SAILFISH! Sure as shrrt, a sailfish on a jig. Tail walking off the transom. Dude loosen up that drag! "We got to land this thing and get a picture." After it jumped a few more times and wrapped Rob's line I, "bare hand billed" a mean, still green sail into the boat. No way that just happened. We are all stoked... but it was short lived. Rob got his hand too close to the jig... that would be the jig that is attatched to the sailfish and got one of the assist hooks in his hand. Now we have a dude connected to a very angry fish via a hook in the meat. Niles worked super fast to cut the leader on the assist hook wile I "Dropped a BOW" on the sail. (no fish were harmed during the struggle) Within 20 sec we got a pic and started reviving the fish. Two minutes later it swam away fine. As for Rob, we may have to operate. We didn't have any cutters strong enough to cut the hook off... we tried. We bent the barb down and this HAUS pulls it out! Tape him back up, he wants back in the game!
Game on! We then fished up with a mixed bag of red grouper, african pompano, fire back grouper and a monster 400 lb shark for Pete's new Saltiga 20.
See all of the pictures and read all of the comments in the NCW Message Board!
|
LEAD NEWS STORY:
){kind=link}