moore_rb
Stay Thirsty My Friends
We checked Bouyweather and it said Sunday was supposed to be flat calm, so my brother in law, my nephew and I loaded up on Saturday afternoon and ran south. Got into town about 5pm and launched the boat, and headed to Capones for dinner. Shawno had just gotten back from Abu Dhabi for a 3 week vacation in the states, and had gone down to RP to deliver a new engine to the marina to be installed on his boat; and he and I have wanted to fish together for a couple years, so we eagerly invited him to join us for a day aboard my boat.
Sunday morning we woke up at 4, coffee'd up and were at the boat at 5am. We stopped for bait in front of Manny's and rustled up some bonefish, rock bass, sand perch, and a few greenback mackerel. We wanted more macks, but after an hour of hunting bait, we had to run- we were planning to fish around the Caballo reef, so getting there before the tide change at 7:30 was imperative...
Luckily, when we got out to the reef, we found the macks. Turns out we had wasted our time trying to scratch up bait inshore. There was so much bait out there- the ocean was absolutely alive. At first we feared that with so much baitfish out there that the fish would already be well fed.
Our fears were waylaid when Shawno buried the hook into a big fish, and after 10 minutes, up comes about a 50 pound Gulf Grouper- A fish Shawn said he'd been waiting a year to catch. A couple drifts later and Shawno gets hooked up again- this time a solid 15 pound Sardinero. He drops back down and a few minutes later he's hooked up AGAIN; and this time we think it's another Baya, but it turned out to be a REALLY nice Leopard - easily a 25 pounder.
Ok, so now I'm thinking "Listen pal, I can respect that you've been away for a year, but stop hogging all the fish! " :smile:
Then, the hot stick moves away from Shawn for a while as Dave nails a couple Sardineros of his own while Shawn generously put his fish-slaying pole down to grab the sabiki and bring up some more macks for the bait tank.
By 10:30am, we had already had a great day of fishing, but we decided to motor over to another nearby spot I knew about. On the first drift Shawn gets clobbered on a live mack, and this time it's a nice white seabass, so everybody changes rigs and baits up with live macks. By now the drift had totally changed and we had to reset the boat about every 20 minutes to stay in the zone, but for the next two hours we had wide-open action on the whites, with everyone aboard landing fish, including a couple triple hook-ups (and we were one short-strike away from scoring a QUADRUPLE at one point) and all of them running from 25 pounds up to a huge 50 pound bruiser that Shawn landed- look at the picture below. Shawn is not a short guy, and that fish goes from the top of his head down past his knees... T.O.A.D.
The bite on the big whites finally cooled off about 1:30 pm, so we tried a couple different spots, but the wind had come up and the seas were building fast, so at 3:00 we decided to wind it up and fight the beam seas for a bumpy ride back to port.
It was another great day of fishing aboard the Tiburon, and it was very satisfying to be able to help provide Shawno with a memorable trip after his year long dry spell... That made the day even more special for me.
Sunday morning we woke up at 4, coffee'd up and were at the boat at 5am. We stopped for bait in front of Manny's and rustled up some bonefish, rock bass, sand perch, and a few greenback mackerel. We wanted more macks, but after an hour of hunting bait, we had to run- we were planning to fish around the Caballo reef, so getting there before the tide change at 7:30 was imperative...
Luckily, when we got out to the reef, we found the macks. Turns out we had wasted our time trying to scratch up bait inshore. There was so much bait out there- the ocean was absolutely alive. At first we feared that with so much baitfish out there that the fish would already be well fed.
Our fears were waylaid when Shawno buried the hook into a big fish, and after 10 minutes, up comes about a 50 pound Gulf Grouper- A fish Shawn said he'd been waiting a year to catch. A couple drifts later and Shawno gets hooked up again- this time a solid 15 pound Sardinero. He drops back down and a few minutes later he's hooked up AGAIN; and this time we think it's another Baya, but it turned out to be a REALLY nice Leopard - easily a 25 pounder.
Ok, so now I'm thinking "Listen pal, I can respect that you've been away for a year, but stop hogging all the fish! " :smile:
Then, the hot stick moves away from Shawn for a while as Dave nails a couple Sardineros of his own while Shawn generously put his fish-slaying pole down to grab the sabiki and bring up some more macks for the bait tank.
By 10:30am, we had already had a great day of fishing, but we decided to motor over to another nearby spot I knew about. On the first drift Shawn gets clobbered on a live mack, and this time it's a nice white seabass, so everybody changes rigs and baits up with live macks. By now the drift had totally changed and we had to reset the boat about every 20 minutes to stay in the zone, but for the next two hours we had wide-open action on the whites, with everyone aboard landing fish, including a couple triple hook-ups (and we were one short-strike away from scoring a QUADRUPLE at one point) and all of them running from 25 pounds up to a huge 50 pound bruiser that Shawn landed- look at the picture below. Shawn is not a short guy, and that fish goes from the top of his head down past his knees... T.O.A.D.
The bite on the big whites finally cooled off about 1:30 pm, so we tried a couple different spots, but the wind had come up and the seas were building fast, so at 3:00 we decided to wind it up and fight the beam seas for a bumpy ride back to port.
It was another great day of fishing aboard the Tiburon, and it was very satisfying to be able to help provide Shawno with a memorable trip after his year long dry spell... That made the day even more special for me.
