Pensacola Fishing Forum / Blue Water Fishing / Blue Water Reports

Anyone swording sat nite?

401 Cay — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 15:06:29 GMT

We are heading for the spur at 5pm.. Will be on 68 or 16.. "Tunnel Vsion". Give a holler if your out there! We are gonna sword then troll in the AM..

8/30 White Marlin/Whaleshark/AJs/Bonita

true-king — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 18:21:50 GMT

Headed to the nipple today to troll. Got there at 8:00 AM and there were some birds working on the surface. Water was better than I've seen in a while. 30 foot visibility. Put out the spread and trolled around a bit. Looked to the starboard side to see a fin and tail swimming on the surface beside the boat! He popped up on a islander/ballyhoo and fiddled with it, then dropped back and hit a super chugger. My friend Andrew (FishingAddict from the forum) grabbed the reel. We got a few jumps out of him before he threw it :banghead:nonono:doh. :reallycrying. Oh well, it was awesome to see that happen and it was our first billfish hookup on the boat. We trolled around for a while and saw a whaleshark, another first. No other action on the troll for the day. Headed to some wrecks a little after noon. Found some small bonita on the way in. The jacks were going crazy at the wreck we fished and were coming up to the top often. We caught some on our 10# small rods. Couldn't manage a keeper though. All in all, it was an awesome day.

Sorry, no pics of the whitie. Too much chaos going on to take any pics!

Recess Bluewater report of 08//30 Saturday befor the strom

recess — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 20:36:29 GMT

The day started out around 5:30 am at Sherman cove ,we were meet by close to calm conditions, a light NE breeze and clear skies. We only made it about 12miles past the 131 before we found a nice upwelling {rip} not much on it at all just mostly trash , about 5 mins into to troll we got the dolphin in the picture , a few mins later we had the bull on, just guessing it was around 50pounds about a minute later he threw the circle hook . Continued south in hopes of reaching the spur when we got a tripleheader on wahoo, we got two of the three the third came off of the yozuri bonita {we have a horrible track record of keeping the fish hooked up on these} but two out of three aint bad. By that time the wind had picked up around 12-15knots from the NE and that isnt a favorable wind for our boat to be at the spur so we turned around and trolled back towards the 131 . We made it to the 131 to find one of the many whale sharks out there, we seen a total of 4 in all that had small blackfin and bonitas all over we pulled combos ,plastics, and live baited the area but we got a big nothin just little blackfin ,which we trolled . We gave up on that and made our way in around 430pm and stopped at one of our snapper balls we managed our eight but had to weed through alot of small ones . The water from the nipple to the spur was green, a clean green but still green no weeds, no real floaters and not much bait. water temp was 78.2 to 79.4 .

Team RECESS

Petronius trip

hmsmithjr — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 12:20:24 GMT

Figured I would give an update. Went out to petronius and got there a little after dark with a well full of livies. First threadfin in and a solid 15 lb blackfin and then nothing for the rest of the night. Eased over toward the beer can and set out swordfish spread. Drifted all night with nothing to show for it. We were close to the beercan so we decided to ease that way at 4 am. Got there and nothing looking good so we decided to run to the marlin since it was closest. Got there and put in a hardtail probably 1/4 mile from the rig and it was picked up immediately "by a shark". Figured that was a sign so back to the petronius. Got there and tuna were blowing so baits in, they moved up current of the rig and we were down current. So we were about to ease over that way when they came up on us and we started throwing poppers. Hooked one blackfin on a popper, then one hit a hardtail. Fought him to the boat and sunk the gaff into a nice 60 pounder, figured this was going to be on fire right " wrong" that was it for the day the tuna came up and went down so fast that we couldn't do anything with them. Drowned hardtails and threadfins for the next two hours and then headed on in. Just to let ya'll know the water at all three rigs is clean green and we hit a patch of blue / blended blue on the way in about 55 to 60 miles south of DI. Good luck to all in lousiana, mississippi, and texas with Gustav.
Maclin

Fri/night saturday tuna trip

BlackFlag — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 22:57:46 GMT

Left o.b marina @ 6:30 conditions were great. Arrived @ the 255 and jigged up a real nice almaco, and two good size blackfins, then the sharks started takin butterfly jigs so we headed for petronius. Once we got to petronius, we jigged up about three blackin's and the sharks went ape shit on us. Had one real nice blackfin right @ the boat with the leader about 4 inches away from my hand and a damn turd hustlin shark snagged him from me. But i did manage to give one of em a real bad headache with the boonie bat. Bitch was doin circles on the surface with my butterfly jig in his mouth. I think he was taunting us. Left there and went to marlin, nothing at all goin on. Pulled off and the crew caught some z's. Went back to the marlin before sunup and put a spread of naked ballyhoo, cedar plugs, and boonie bird out. Once yft started bustin the surface we had double hookups. One 65lber on the cedar plug, and a 80lber on a ballyhoo that i rigged with a blue and white king duster crimped about 3 inches in front of the hoo. Ended up catching a total of 5 yft @ marlin except for the 65 and the 80 the rest were in the 40's. Missed three really good fish to stupid mistakes. One hit the trim tab in a last second dash and broke off. Then one broke the 100 lb leader at the hook.. no chaffing gear because it was a naked hoo. then one because port outrigger made a hard run to starboard and managed to burn off upon grazing port flat line. Sucks but oh well. Bite died shortly after tried chunking for about an hour no luck. so headed for petronius again. Ended up doin real well there but all the yft were no more than 30 lbs. Left hit 255 again alot of undersize aj's, managed to get 3 keepers. Hit unocal jacket wound up with three more keeper aj's.

Total count: 12 yft, 6 aj's, 1 almaco, and 5 blackfins. All the yft hit on naked ballyhoo, hoo with a small blue and white moldcraft lil' chugs alot on the ballyhoo with the small blue and white duster crimped 4 inches away from hoo. And cedar pugs. I rigged everything on 100 lbs leaders, with majority of hook selection being mustad 7732 7/0 hooks. I will post the pics as soon as the boss email's them to me

Southeast of the Spur 8-29-08

Outa Line II — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 13:12:33 GMT

Put the lines in at the Spur around 1:00 am on the 29th. Water was dirty green. No swordfish to be had. Managed to dip up 8 or 10 live ballyhoo that came to the blue lites. Around 6:00 am started trolling and went down the 200f curve for 50 or so miles. Found the blue green water (more green than blue) but there was no life, grass, rips or anything. Decided to ease NW to the Elbow. Water was a better clean green, but no bait or fish. Found a push in 800' but no life. Most of the bait we found was in 30f W of the Elbow in a better blue green water. 400 gallons and not a knockdown. Maybe next time. Appears that the Nipple and a little S of it was the place to be that day! Hopefully the water will improve this fall. :boo

Double Sail Fish at Once on Double Jerk

aquabubba — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 21:09:01 GMT

Well I got a nice chance to go on one of my buddies boats yesterday to do a little fishing before the storm. My buddy Chad L. invited me to go fishing before the storm and I was glad I did. We went to the nipple and had lines in at 7:00. Over the course of the day we had two whites come into the spread, but no luck. Started to think it was time to go in and get ready for the bama game but decided to stay a little while longer. It was worth it. We ended up with a sail in the spread on one of the riggers and dropped back on him. Fish on. I started to clear the center line and about half way up a second sail hit my line. Then we had two sails on at once. Well we went 2 for 2 on the sails and headed to the house to watch a great bama game. Doesn't get much better.

Last trip before the storm

Capteddie — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 22:45:21 GMT

Well heres a little report about my last trip I ran before the storm. Had Kelly Hasney and his friends/customers on the boat. We made it out to innovator(figured might as well put the rig name in as AINT nobody going there for a while LOL) Fishies were blowing up everywhere and we started out 1-4 on topwater and 0-1 on livies. Got that little stretch out of the way when we had a good tuna on a livie. While we were fighting him I started chunking when I looked down and saw a wahoo swim by the boat. Was about to pitch a bait to him when I saw my line trailing out of his mouth. Only had 80 pound leader so we figured it was going to be over quick when he came tight and took off. Dont know how we did it but the fish swallowed the hook and still didnt cut the line. the 40 pound wahoo was quite a bonus. We kept picking away at the fish on live bait and ended up with a total of 8 for the day. At the end we were live chumming the fish up and they were exploding on them right behind the boat.

Dont know how long this little storm is going to keep me out of business but I will be up and running as soon as I figure out a way. Keep praying and send captain morgan if it really looks bad

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/mangosnap/fishing2009001.jpg[/IMG]

sword trip report

reeldeal 18 — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 20:55:44 GMT

left yesterday and ran to the spur to swordfish.. green water . some bait around.. went 3-6 .. no keepers . pulled the hooks on a real good one.. trolled in the morning up to the nipple to find a 30 pound wahoo and a few whale sharks which had black fin and bonita pretty solid.

8/29 Nipple Report

rauber — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 20:00:25 GMT

finally we decided to head offshore again. after checking the weather every 5 minutes the last 5 days i decided it would be a good idea to convince my girlfriend to go fishing for the first time since 6 years (last time she spend most of the day sleeping seasick on the cooler in 5 footers) . we headed to shorline park to find out that our fishing licenses expirerd yesterday.... to make it even better law enforcement showed up and checked everything. i called that 1- 800 fishing licence number and off we went. the bay looked kind of choppy but the forcast was 1-2 so hmmm.. got some bait and headed out.about 10 milesout i had to pull back the first time- the waves were about 3 foot by than. around the nipple we has an occational 4 footer mixed in and whitecaps eerywhere. water looked clean green and pretty nice but didnt find any rips or lines. after 1 hour the port rigger popped,i dropped em back and a couple of minutes later we had a estimated 10-15 lbs bull mahi. after that we trolled for a while without any knockdowns so we decided to head in for some bottom fishing. the waves laid down a little and we dropped our baits. we got a couple of mingos, a nice rock salmon jigging, another half rock salmon and a scamp. by than the sea looked like a lake and we decided to head in. thanks god my girlfriend didnt get too sick and she could a mingo :letsdrink
came back around 1630. it turned out to be a great day but actualy i would wish to go out there right now again...

fergie

dirty water

Midnight Run — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 21:04:37 GMT

I went to help rescue a broken down boat at horn mountain yesterday and the water was nasty green so dont go that way!left at 11:00 yesterday morning and got back at 5:30 this morning. It was a long ride a 5 to 7 knots for 90 miles in 5-7 ft seas

petronis, marlin, beer can, ram powell all dirty

Sailfish killed on the pier???

Caspr21 — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 10:07:46 GMT

Last night I was out on the beach with the GF and we decided to walk down the fishing pier. We got to the end and over heard a conversation that a Sail was caught and killed last weekish sometime??????? Said he was around 60lbs? Does anyone know about this or can deny this???? I mean I am not sure why I am shocked, they freaking kill one EVERY YEAR out there. :banghead:banghead:banghead

Overnighter on 08/11

DonkeyWrangler18 — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:34:22 GMT

Me and six buddies went over night fishing the meekend of August 11th. We headed in the direction of the beer can, marlin, and the ram powell. The water looked beautiful the whole way out, when we arrived at the Beer Can there was schools of yft jumping every where mostly between the 40-80# weight class but there was an occasional big one. Within five minutes of dropping are baits in the water we hooked two yellowfin in the fifty pound class lost one after five minutes and the second one at the boat. We kept fishing but the bite had turned off just as fast as it turned on. We then headed out to the Marlin and trolled until sunset we were able to raise one billfish that played around in are spread and then dissapeared. Once it got dark we started chunking at the marlin had no luck there, so we made a move back to the beer can and the bite was off there as well, so we made a another move and ran over to the rampowell where we had no luck with yft but did catch some blackfin. We jigged and chuncked until morning time with not much more success. Once daybreak hit the bite got better and managed to hook another yft around 60# at the ram powell this time but yet again we got this one right up next to the boat and lost it.:banghead We continued fishing and after another thirty minutes we were hooked up again with a yft around 50# this time we didnt waste any time boating the fish and finally put are first fish in the boat. The bite seemed to turn off so we moved back to the beer can where the tuna were jumping again and again within approximately five minutes we were hooked up on about a 40# yft and after about fifteen minutes we boated are second and final fish. After sitting and fishing at the beer can for approximately another hour only catching little schoolies on a popper we decided to put her in the wind and head home to make the trip even more interesting just as the beer can was getting out of sight are port engine stopped working due to trash in are main fuel filter, and after eight hours of riding to get home we finally made it. It was a fun trip and definately encouraging that the blue water was finally at the tuna rigs.

Below are a couple pics from the trip, Am planning to head back out this upcoming weekend, wondering if anyone else will be out there?

Petronius

hmsmithjr — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 08:45:40 GMT

Heading out to the petronius Thursday afternoon, weather permitting but it is looking pretty good right now. Anyone else going to be that way.

Maclin

imagery

bluffman2 — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 09:19:28 GMT

a shot from yesterday courtesy of a friend....

[IMG]http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd94/bluffman2/water.jpg[/IMG]

First Over night trip to the rigs

msubdawg — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 20:08:40 GMT

We left out of Fort Morgan at 3:30 p.m. August 8th headed for the rigs. We caught bait at some of the rigs on the way out and arrived at Petronius about 7:30 p.m. We trolled live hard tails and did some jigging around the rig and caught a lot of sharks and baracuda but nothing impressive. We had one fish hooked up that I think was a respectable tuna, but after about a 20 minute fight the fish came off.

At 8:14 p.m. we were able to see the International Space Station fly over head. We continued to fish around the rig until about 11:00 and moved away from the rig and put out some sword baits and settled in for the night. The night sky was amazing. My nephew enjoyed playing with all of the glowing critters in the water. We caught one small shark but that was it for the night. At 4:30 a.m. we went back to the rig and fished until daylight without much luck. We are somewhat new to the blue water stuff so we are learning every time we go. We put out a spread and trolled for a while again without much luck.

We saw a few hookups on other boats but not that many. We did see one boat catch a nice yft. After reading his post I think it was JMS. I guess we should have stopped and chunked like they were doing. After trolling for a while we decided to leave Petronius and head for the Marlin.

We got to the Marlin and there were small very fast moving schools of tuna busting the surface.

We tried trolling, casting poppers, jigging, live hard tails, and chunking and could not get a hookup. Like I said they were in small schools moving fast, and we could not stay with them very long. After trying everything we knew to do we put out some high speed trolling lures, made a few laps around the rig and headed for the Ram. After just a few minutes of trolling I saw a fine column of mist on the surface off in the distance. Then we saw another one. It was a WHALE. And there were more. We ended up seeing at least 3 whales, I think sperm whales. Here is a link to a bad video of the experience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lvr3Gt-Kt-I

And a picture.

We headed to the Beer Can and then back to Fort Morgan. We ended up with a bft, some small AJ's, a nice triple tail, and some other small stuff in the cooler.

We had a great time and I am looking forward to doing it again. With this experience and reading posts from the folks on this forum maybe nextime we can put more in the cooler. If anyone has any suggestions on what we can do differently please feel free to offer them. Thanks in advance.

By the way, my 12 year old nephew put more fish in the boat than any of us. Congrats Jake.

Offshore report 600 fathoms to the Spur...Sat.

TITLEWAVE — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 15:53:29 GMT

Why i dont know , but we decided to try and fish this last weekend. Left the marina late sat as the rain poured till 8 am. Got 50 miles offshore by 11 am or so in a mixed confused 2-3 ft wonderful chop. Around 600 ft we saw a billion birds in the distance and worked that way to find a Whale shark on top feeding with thousands of tuna ! thats right tuna in 600 ft of water . We eased up and threw poppers into the mess of fish and instantly hooked up on fat 25 and 30 pound blackfin tunas . Saw plenty of 50 to 60 pound yellowfin in the mix jumping but was never able to get through all the blackfin to catch one. We fished for 2 hours keeping 8 blackfin to 30 pounds and releasing 20 more , before we decided to head to the spur. Got to the spur to find dirty green water , and my partners didnt want to swordfish in the green water so they headed back inshore to catch nothing. Moved to 9 miles off in the dark , and put 6 huge snapper to 15 pounds in the box before 1 am and hit it for the dock late sat night.

Hind side 20/20 , we should have stayed in the area of the wahale shark and swordfished there as there was life everywhere.......so moral of the story is dont leave fish to catch fish ....as it fails every time. The seas and weather was so nice late sat by 9 that it was a shame we didnt stay out and swordfish , but i guess there is always next time. What i cant belive is how off the weather report was this weekend , getting me down to fish only to be ruined by weather at the last second.....thats two lousy trips in a row ??????

Offshore Venice La

Capteddie — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 15:21:22 GMT

I ran a few day trips and one night trip in the last week. On thur I had Tufan and his friends from houston on the boat. It was supposed to be a nice day but the weather decided to change. We made it out about 25 miles before they requested not to go any farther. We went and did some amberjerking and pulled out one almaco and broke off two ajs. They decided it was too rough so we headed back to teh pass and caught and released a bunch of red snapper while we were looking for something to put in the box. It started raining on us so we called it a day and headed to the dock.

I had an overnighter the next night and was a little worried about the weather but it ended up being just fine for us. We headed south and had some problems finding bait. We did get some good bait and of course the blackfins ate it before the yf could get to it. Before dark we put one yf in the box and a bunch of blacks. We pulled the hooks on 3-4 yf on poppers in teh evening. We fished a little at night and decided to rest up for the morning bite right at gray light the fish went off and we had a quadruple header on yf. Landed 2 out of 4 and we kept throwing poppers till about 830 in the morning when they started to slow down on top. I know we landed 7 yf and dont know how many others blew up on the poppers and missed them or pulled the hooks. It was a very fun morning though as we headed to the house with 7 yf and 9 bf.

I had a day trip on sunday with a tackle rep and it was fun fishing with some wet weather. I think we got rained on for about half of the trip. We made it out to our rig of destination and started chunking. We put a 50 yf in the box on the first drift and then saw some fish jumping and hooked one on a frenzy popper. We landed that one and started another drift when a big dolphin showed up and Steve Kirkpatrick put a 45 pound dolphin in the boat for his first ever dolphin. Gonna be hard to top that one. The fish came up some more and we put another one in the boat on a popper before we started chunking again and nailed another one and lost one. Ended the day with 4 yf and one dolphin before we hightailed it to the dock before the rainstorm.

Had another day trip on monday With Clay and friends from longview, tx. It was a little choppy in the morning but it slicked off by midmorning. The fish were jumping everywhere and were biting just as well. Using 60 pound frenzy flouro and live bait we put 11 yf in the box before noon and headed to the house. We went 11-11 on yf and didnt miss a bite.

I had David queensbury on tues and it was not a repeat of the day before. The fish were jumping everywhere and we were hooking up but our landing ratio was horrible. We started out 3-4 and then missed 6 straight fish either on the strike or halfway through the fight. We picked up some more in the afternoon and ended the day with 6 yf total.

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

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/mangosnap/2008pics001.jpg[/IMG]

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[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/mangosnap/2008pics007.jpg[/IMG]

dauphin island sword

bluffman2 — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 12:06:51 GMT

saw this on another forum and thought yall might want to see.....they said it went 200+

http://www.thehulltruth.com/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=211595&posts=1

Spur on Wednesday

Sir Reel — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 17:49:35 GMT

Some friends of mine flew in Wednesday to film their annual salt water fishing trip for their hunting and fishing show. We left Destin pass about 5 AM on Wednesday morning for the Spur to drag some baits. They had put in an order for Marlin. Hit the spur around 8 AM and set up the spread. The Water was blue but very hazy. At about nine o’clock something hit out mold craft on the long rigger. I thought it was a dolphin but no one saw it hit. While my son was starting to clear lines they were setting up their cameras. Every thing was fine until Wham our left teaser started screaming. We decided to put hooks on the teasers just hoping to catch anything. (Mistake 1) Now my son has something on the port teaser the Host has something on the port long and I’m driving the boat. I tell the underwater camera guy to real in the short rigger. He looks at me and asking what a rigger is. After giving detailed instruction I settle on explaining that it would be helpful if he would reel any of the 7 remaining lines in. He begins his retrieve at one turn per minute. No problem I’ll just reel them in myself. As I start to reel in the port short my son lets me know that he is going to be spooled on the little reel we have the teaser on. It’s time to turn or stop. We idle back and land two monster black fins. (Mistake 2) Six lines are in a tangled mess. We quickly boat the fish and slam them in the box. (Mistake 3) We were supposed to slowly bring the fish in so they could film them in the water, and talk about these fish. We will do better next time.

Trolled down the east side of the canyon the water stayed cloudy. Turned toward the steps about 20 miles south of the spur and trolled another 10 miles until we found a lot of scatter weeds. After clearing the lines himself for an hour my son informed me it was time to take some lines out of the spread. We pulled two lines out of the spread. We trolled south another ten miles hoping the weeds would form up somewhere. No weed lines, cloudy water and NO MORE FISH. By now the entire crew is asleep on the bow of the boat and getting a little agitated since the waves are a lot higher than the one foot prediction on Reefcast. Waves keep breaking over the bow and getting them wet as they rest.

Time to eat something! I had the great idea to stow the dry food in the live well. (Mistake 4) I wait in anticipation of the nutter butters I’m about to receive, only to find the live well is FULL OF WATER. Everyone is having fun now.

Decide since our guest are unhappy and they think it's too rough. We will pull the lines and head to the spur. We'll try for an evening sword bite. After our guest had an hour of sleep while we put out the squid, they LET US KNOW they were ready to head back. Back in at 11:00 PM.

At Waffle house they communicated that they need to catch lots of fish so they would have plenty of video to edit. No problem! We will bottom fish tomorrow. I know where a lot of 27” Amberjack and no one needs to see us release them

7:00 AM Thursday

I’m at Half Hitch. It’s sabiki time. They don't wake up until 11:30 ready for breakfast. At 3:30 PM they film the boat leaving and coming back. We clear the pass about 4:30 and load up on Blue Runners and Hard Tails. It’s finally going our way. The wind is starting to blow and they want me to stay close so we settle on the Liberty Ship. Troll for Kings and Wham FISH ON. Only one problem, the camera man is chunking over the side. Then he gets the hiccups. A few more kings are lost waiting to get the camera set right. They do get good footage of a 36” Barracuda. Head in once it gets dark.

6:00 AM Friday

We are going to get it Right today! BUT, The camera man is tired, the waves are going to be high, its hot out there…etc. We’re awake and we’re going fishing, camera man or not. They let us take the underwater camera. 6 Kings just outside the inlet. Great underwater footage but no audio or out of water footage, and we had the host back in time for a 12:00 flight.

This is not Crappie Fishing and sure as hell not Costa Rica! If they get a show out of this I will be amazed.

I'll post some video once they send it to me.

sunday at the spur

sail7seas — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 20:30:43 GMT

my fishing buddy(pelagicone) and i got a late start on sunday morning and left perdido pass around 700 sunday morning. we were originally taking some family out to troll a little bit and bottom bump but they backed out so we decided to go trolling for the day. i didnt have any good shots from hiltons the last few days and it was too late for a roffs so we just went out blind. stopped at the nipple and dropped in lines for about 45 minutes. water did not look that good so we moved on. headed out towards the spur and started seeing some boats around and water getting a little cleaner. on the way there were some nice tuna freejumping. these looked in the 50-80 lb range. several looked pretty good. they sounded though by the time we got over to them. we trolled a rip a couple miles northeast of the spur. the water was green with just a hair of blue in it. we were cruising along when the port rigger pops. my buddy and i looked over at the reel and she started screaming. he grabs it and i keep the boat moving. the fish must have pulled out 300 yds of line when i see it jump several feet out of the water way the hell out there. and just like that she had spit the hook. i think it was a white marlin but it was so far out i am not real sure. it was the first billfish we had ever hooked so we were pretty pumped. it hit a yellow/green islander with ballyhoo. we moved over to the contours of the spur and found another rip. the water was dirtier over here, fairly clean green. we worked it and started seeing some tuna again. a flatline with purple/black bonita goes off and i grab the rod. fight the fish and get it fairly close to the boat and it spits again. didnt get to see this one. time to sharpen the hooks. we get near some of the tuna and i threw the popper off the bow and hook a fish and it winds up being a huge bonita. we troll a little more with no more luck and start heading in. found a huge log about 20 miles nnw of spur and pull a couple of chicken dolphins off it. head to the yellow gravel to bottom bump for a little bit and a storm decides it is going to head ene for the gravel and the edge. watched it for a minute on the xm weather and decided it wasnt meant to be. put the throttles down and rode the edge of it and watched two massive waterspouts on the way in. even though the water wasnt great there was a good bit of bait around.

The elf rig

BlackFlag — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 21:09:48 GMT

was just wondering if anyone had been out that way lately?

North Carolina new marlin record

bluffman2 — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 20:23:35 GMT

Blue weighed in at 1228.5 in the pirates cove tourney...(OBX) caught aboard the Mimi out of Ft. Lauderdale, Fl.

[img]http://www.fishpiratescove.com/upload_pics/marlin17d6588ff65f293d0f80afbafc32e9d19.jpg[/img]

[IMG]http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc264/UNCWCraig/Pirates.jpg[/IMG]

more pics at the homepage to this site

http://reelbuzz.com/fishreports/fishnfool/reply.asp?ID=7909&Reply=7909

The Fishing Clowns, part 1

Hendrik — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 14:27:14 GMT

Got stuck with my brand new Suburban Saturday in the yard, then got double stuck with Justin's truck in front of it.
Had to get my "old" Excursion to pull the whole circus out.
During launch a wheel from the trailer came floating by.
Then we hooked up 5 miles out to a rig to ride out a storm and the rope broke on the righook.

I guess those days sound familiar to some of us, it certainly does to us, The Fishing Clowns

Still went to the Petronius but only caught chicken tuna.

Great day though!

See for yourself http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKz8_52mDgc

By the way, the Excursion is for sale.
2000, V10, 4WD, 152K miles
$6,950

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The Fishing Clowns, part 1

Hendrik — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 11:58:45 GMT

Weekend rig report

TARPON01 — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 16:57:12 GMT

Just got back from fishing and fiqured I wouild give everyone the update on how slow it is on the rigs. We fished all day on saturday at the Marlin and Beer can and only managed 2 Yellowfin around 40lb. (Caught a few blackfin as well) Both where caught on poppers. Could'nt by a bite on live 8" hardtails. We did see a nice marlin sat afternoon at the marlin rig. He took a hard look at the live hardtails but wouldnt eat. If anyone is going out anytime soon I would suggest saving the gas money until the water clears up.

Celtic first Bluewater trip this year!!

Boardfeet — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 10:52:04 GMT

Took a bunch of my duck hunting buddies from Arkansas to Petronius Saturday....It was rough as most of you know and the tuna bite was slow there....We deciced to troll to the Steps....about 3/4 of the way there we had a knockdown... it was this Wahoo.....Weight about 40#

Trolled around the steps for a while with no results...only saw a good size Dolphin free jumping but couldn't get his attention.

Turned N/E toward the Elbow and had gone only about 4-5 miles when a billfish csme into the spread... She made a couple of passes through the spread...then started billing on the mousetrap lure...It was a Blue and White Islander with a Blue head, and a rigged ballyhoo.

John dropped the bait back to her two or three times before hooking her up.

Didn't get any great pics of her except with one of those throw away cameras...(pics not developed yet)

We did get her to the boat and had hands on the leader...She got under the boat and the leader got into the trim tab before we got a chance to get a tag in..

Marlin jumping behind the boat^^^^^^^

Larry Huckabee the Marlin angler, Dennis Noel, Wahoo killer, and John Godwin #1 cockpit man!!

Thanks John for making sure those guys had a good time!!!

Baby Sailfish

CHICO — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 11:18:19 GMT

Thought this was pretty neat. On our last trip while fishing for swords Saturday night I saw what looked like two needle fish 130 miles out. While watching them for a few more minutes I saw a sail. These two were chasing around some bait fish from the lights with the sails straight out of the water. It was pretty cool.

Offshore venice La

Capteddie — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 22:15:27 GMT

Been having an interesting time here in venice. HAd a pair of day trips go out with Capts Hunter and Lee on fri while I was supposed to run an overnighter with John Hook. Got up around 930 to a thunderstorm so ended up cancelling my overnighter and stayed around the dock till my guys got in with some good stories. They both had 6 yf each although hunter won the big fish pot with a 153. We pushed Johns trip to saturday where he went out and caught a couple yellows and some other assorted fishies.

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/mangosnap/2008pics226.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/mangosnap/2008pics227.jpg[/IMG]

I ran another overnighter on sat night with Harold Moses and crew. We had a heck of a good trip. Started out with a yf on a popper out long. Put our livies in the water and picked away at them and ended up with 6 yf in the box before dark. Ran a little over to the east for the night bite and got on a great blackfin bite. Most of the blacks were 18-25 pounds. We had no yf action at all then so we started piling the blacks in the fishbox. Around midnight we had 15 or so blacks in the boat plus the 6 yf. WE made the decision to take a little nap before we got back on teh bite. Around 215 we made teh move back to the rig and immediately got on a yf bite again. At 4 am we put our last yf in the box to give us a total of 11 yfs and 15 blackfin.

We put all these fish in one of my two boxes on my boat. If theres one thing about the palmetto the fishboxes are huge.

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/mangosnap/2008pics228.jpg[/IMG]

rigs

4wahoo — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 09:22:08 GMT

headed to the rigs tonight does anyone have any current reports? the sat pics have not been very good, any info would be much appreciated.

8-9-08 At the Petronious

JMS — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 08:09:36 GMT

I headed down late friday afternoon with the boat to my cousin and fishing partner's house in Milton.(Ben)We have had a trip planned for several weeks with our good friend Steve. Steve came over from Ft. Stewart and just got back from over a year in Iraq (this was his 5th trip overseas) .Steve has been on the front lines every time and is a true hero. It was great to see him again and even better to go fishing. We headed out from Pensacola about 11:30 friday night. The seas were smooth and we had a nice tail wind from the north as we set out for the Petronious. We arrived about 3:30 and pulled right up and started jigging. There were a few boats there, not many though. We caught some hardtails in close to the rig and steve got a nice barracuda.As we let ourselves drift away we could see the fish on the finder at 50 ft. It was blackfin and it was every time we dropped. They ranged from 12 to 17#'s.Caught some smaller YFT jiggig too. A whole lot of fun. As the sun started to come up we put one of the hardtails on a drift line and started chunking with some of the smaller bft's(Thanks for the reply to my question on the forum"what exactly is chunking") because cooler space was already a problem. As the suncame up some more boats showed up troling the perimeter and we saw a few YFT busting but not very many. The water was bluish green. It was alright but not as pretty as I have seen it.. About the time the sun came over the horizon, the drifting hardtail got slammed. 20 minutes later Steve has his first YFT in the boat. A 65 lber. We repeat the process. Get a line wrapped on the prop by a hardtail that wanted to hide under the boat. I go swimming to get the line untangled. The bite dies of as the sun gets up and we start trolling west towards the spur then turn south. There was some grass but no well formed lines. 3 hours later and no knock downs we decided to try our luck at the marathon platform. Caught a few small almacos and some bait was working the top. Lots of barracudas. We had some bonitas hanging over the side chumming and saw a huge shark coming in hard in our drift. It comes right to the boat and circles us several times. It is a 6-8 ft hammerhead! Awesome. We take pictures of it circling and steve picks up a bonita we had laying around from jigging,hooks it on to the tuna rig, pitches it in and she comes right up and takes it. IT WAS ON. 1 hour and 40 minutes later she is completely wore down and comes to the top. We were in position to boat her and the leader finally popped. What a great fight and Steve was a beat ass! By that time it was time to run in. The wind was in our face and made for a wet ride home. We got back around 7 that afternoon. A great time with great friends and 15 gallons of tuna Steaks.Enjoy the pics!

Bluewater Reports?

HeartofDixie — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 10:51:42 GMT

Looks like I'm headed out to the Dumping Grounds, Steps, and maybe the Spur area tomorrow (Sat. 8/9). Has anyone been out in that area recently or seen a good satellite shot? If so, what does the water conditions look like? Thanks to all that respond...just trying to save any fuel we can. I'll post a report on water conditions when I return, and hopefully some FISH!!! Good Luck to anyone else thats going out this weekend!!!

8/9-8/10 rig trip

Meagans Choice — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 20:44:01 GMT

Went to Horn this Sat. night. Caught some nice blackfins 20-30 lb chuncking. Later we swordfished and had one bite but no hookup. Early next AM bait busting everywhere and caught one 50-60 lb yellowfin trolling on a cedar plug. Also hooked a sailfish but shortly broke off. Water was clear bluegreen. I really enjoyed the trip/ thanks to a great crew and hope to get back out there soon. BTW, the yellowfin tasted great on the grill tonight.

Saturday Night Swordfish

Insta Gator — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 11:18:29 GMT

Saturday Nipple/Spur

Reel Rowdy — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 23:23:05 GMT

Headed out of Perdido pass around 0430 Saturday morning with the nipple as our destination. The seas were flat and it was a beautiful night. We didn't expect to find much but were determined to get out no matter what. Put the lines in green water at the nipple around 0630 headed south, 30 minitues later we raise a whitie and he hits the outrigger but only holds on for about 10 seconds and he is gone. We are pretty pumped up now. Our course is SE for the Spur, but the next 3 hours is nothing but green water. No weeds, rips, or bait, nada! About 15 miles North of the Spur the water begins to look a little better, clear blue/green now and we come across a nice rip that is beginning to form a nice little weed line running North/South, we see lots of bait and it looks real fishy. Here is the best part, at this point we have only seen 2 other boats and that was earlier. There was not another boat in sight of us, the line was all ours:)

We pulled 3 nice dolphin off the rip over the next couple of hours which made the trip worth it for us. 2 Cows were 32 and 26 lbs and the other was about 15. The weed line seemed to be just forming and I suspect if anyone can get out early this week it should be a nice one!

Water 12 miles N of Spur

[IMG]http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y95/mossy34/Reel%20Rowdy%202008/DSC03975.jpg[/IMG]

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And here is a pic of my best fishing buddy a couple of weeks ago!

[IMG]http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y95/mossy34/Reel%20Rowdy%202008/taylorstrigger1.jpg[/IMG]

Offshore Venice La

Capteddie — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 10:22:56 GMT

We have been fighting through the weather and fishing when we can over here. I snuck out on a private 36 contender on tuesday the day the tropical storm made landfall in texas. We played around in close before the call was made to head long and we ran into a great tuna bite. Using small hardtails and topwater poppers we had two straight quadruple headers out to the east. There were acres of fish coming up. After an hour and a half we had nine yf in the box and a couple dolphin before we had to hightail it in before dark.

I ran the same boat on wed and we went south to look around and see what was out there. Soon as we got there we realized it was gonna work out as we saw tuna jumping everywhere. WE had caught about 60 baby hardtails so I was able to do a little live chumming as we had fish blowing up behind our boat. It was an amazing day and we had 14 yf in the box by noon when we made the call to head back in and have some cocktails.

The fish generally feed real strong after a storm moves through and this time we had a 2 day awesome bite.

I ran a day trip on my palmetto yesterday with Ron Jordan, Todd Volkmann and their sons and fishing was back to normal. We picked up 4 yf on live bait in the morning and then they slowed down. Caught a bunch of bonito, small yf, and blackfins on poppers later on but nothing for the box.

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/mangosnap/2008pics206.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/mangosnap/2008pics208.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/mangosnap/2008pics213.jpg[/IMG]

Clean water at the Marlin Rig

macala — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:41:44 GMT

It’s been a while since I have posted a report but due to poor water conditions/ fuel prices, I feel compelled to write one. Thanks to all who have posted current water conditions. I’m sure this forum has saved me hundreds of dollars on fuel. I am reporting that the water conditions have changed at the Marlin Rig.

I had two guys from San Diego fly in on Monday for a fishing trip and it had been 11 years since we all fish together. Due to the dirty water around the local oil rig, I thought of driving to Venice for a charter. I called Eddie Burger and Ed Freaky, and they both were booked up until Thursday. That was Plan A so on to Plan B. I looked on Hilton’s site, it showed Thunderhorse in very favorable water so I strapped on the fuel bladder and we left Tuesday morning with low hopes.

We spent the first hour catching bait around the pass and then it took us 3 hrs to make the first stop at the Marlin Rig. I planned on stopping at the Marin, Horn, and Nakika to get to clean water. When we arrived at the Marlin Rig, the water was still green but a clean green if that makes sense. As we were preparing a spread, I see a huge yft 5 feet out of the water.

Ten minutes later we see almost 50 yft out of the water at the same time, all over the place. I have seen yfts jumping but I have never seen 30 flying fish flying together in formation. We caught two yfts and a nice bull for the next 2 hrs.

The tunas had so much to eat that it was really hard to get a bite. There were bait ball, flying fish, and rainbow runners everywhere. As soon as the sun when down, everything shut down.

We then ran to the steps and drifted for swords. We got two bites that night with a shark cutting through the 300 lbs leader and the hook pulling off a sword. Maybe next time. The water was dirty and it’s nice to know that it does not affect the swordfish bite.

We got up 5:00 am and ran to the Marlin rig again. Sure enough the tunas were still there going nuts. Nothing that worked the day before were working that morning. We decided to down size to 40lbs test line on some 30A reels. As soon as we put the hardtails in the water, we were hooked up. After two yfts in the boat, we hooked up on a fish that shocked all of us. The fish would not stop on its first run and we were left with only half of the spectra backing. The fight lasted 3hrs 20 minutes with Joe and I had it for 3hrs before gaffing it. Hardest fighting fish I have ever witnessed. We put 15lbs of drag on 40 lbs test line and it took that long to bring up. The line was soon twisted that the line look like it would snap any minute. I can’t express the stress level of losing a fish like this one. I don’t think we even celebrated once we boated the fish due to stress. No one said a word until we got back. We ran as fast a we could home to get ice. What a trip.

I hope you Enjoyed the pictures. All pictures were taken by Mike Kim from San Diego.

If you can, go to the Marlin Rig right now. To all bill fishermen, I saw a 600+ lbs blue marlin working rainbow runner all over the place. We caught small rainbow runners on small ballyhoos. If you look at the Hilton site, you can see a clean blue finger coming in near the Marlin and Ram Powell rig. Good luck!!

Jeff Choe Macala (MAtthew, CAlvin, LAuren)

Wife 1st Billfish/swordfish

TSpecks — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 23:58:02 GMT

Well, fished with "Fully Involved" this weekend and had a blast during the ladies tourney with the wife and sister. Wife caught the first sword of the night around 1:00am Sat morning. Then at 3:00am the giant hit and I started screaming for the ladies to come out. My wife grabbed the rod threw it in the chair and the fight was on. She fought the sword for 2 hours, she did awesome for only the second bluewater fish she had ever caught. Trolled during the day my sister caught a 24.8 dolphin. The only fish caught while trolling the first day of the ladies. Sat night my sister slept near the door waiting on her chance for a sword. Got the first bite around 11:00pm got it in a pup so we let it go. Caught one more pup around 2:00 am sun morning. Got another big bite around 4:30 and the 80 was screaming for proably 5 min and the hook pulled. Trolled all day sunday and did not get a bite.

Final Results 4-7 on swords and 1 dolphin

Results in Ladies tourney 1st place sword at 126.5 and the dolphin did not place

For my sister and wife congrats on being top boat of the tourney

Will try and add pics tomorrow, having trouble

wifes sword

Saturday SE of the Spur on REELENTLESS

Caspr21 — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 09:43:42 GMT

Do to outstanding circumstances, we were unable to leave until midnight friday night. This was DK's G3 (Dan Kealer) first trip offshore and man was he excited. We cleared Perdido Pass with a smooth 20knot ride out to the spur. As the sun came up and the spread got set, we were heading south and I looked down from the tower into the sun and OH SH*T there is a yellow 1/2'' rope about 200 ft long stretched out and under the boat she went:banghead:banghead. By the time we pulled them back, it was too late. It had the starboard prop tightly wrapped and the fender teaser. Damn. So, in that pleasant beautiful GREEN water, I got to take an early morning swim to cut rope out of the props. After that debackale, we got the spread back out and started looking for clean water. We came up on a decent line, but no knock downs. Later in the morning we had a white free jumping with no interest in the baits. Then a sail came up with no hook up. Then it got really slow. I talked with Wade on the radio and he said that line we had found early in the morning had made up a little better, so we turned and headed back NE. We picked up the line and again, it was made up with current, weeds, and a little color change. We went 14 miles NE up this line WITHOUT A FREAKING KNOCK DOWN! We finally find a pocket and the dolphin are there. Center rigger slams down (blue and white islander) and DK has his first blue water fish on! I must admit, I did keep both engines in gear throughout the fight to make him sweat a little! 10 mins, we have a nice upper 20's lb dolphin in the boat. We put the spread back out and had a few more smaller dolphin become grease worthy. It was getting late, so we decided to get the spinning reels out and try to pick off some of the bigger fish under the impossible to troll weed patties. We saw several that were 30+ and found a couple that would eat. John Godwin Jr. did a great job on 20lb test with a 30+ lb dolphin and a lot of hurdles to overcome. Not long after we boated that fish, the dolphin got the lock jaw and we decided to take it to the house. We met that storm about 40 miles offshore and man was it a rough ride home. All in all, it was great to be on the water with old friends. Until next time, tight lines and pray for some change in water conditions. Thanks to Chuck for an awesome time. Kevin it just wasnt the same without you on the boat!

OBBC REPORT ABOARD HIGH C'S

Midnight Run — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 15:54:23 GMT

We fished in greens canyon the first day and caught like 30 yellow fins all around 50lbs. the second day we were around Mars and were 1-2 on blue marlin and 0-1 on white marlin and caught 1 dolphin. We ended up with second place T&R so it payed for the trip. Here are some pics from the weekend