Thanksgiving weeks was a doozie. I took Tim Rodebaugh, his son, and a friend, from Houston Texas on Sunday and Monday prior to turkey day. Last year he fished with me about this time and it cost him a butt load of money. He ended going home and putting his 270TE WorldCat up for sale and bought a new 330TE WorldCat. Our main goal on this trip was to catch the Miami Duo (Sailfish & Swordfish in the same day).
We fished Sunday from 1 PM until midnight. We caught our bait quickly and headed offshore intent on catching the first leg of this duo. We did just that catching a few Kingfish and 2 Sailfish. The first round complete and the seas being moderate we decided to push out at dusk and try to catch a Swordfish to cap the Miami Duo. The seas out in the 1500' depths of the gulfstream were pushing a solid 4 feet. We set out our 4 baits and started a drift. Nothing doing. The seas were increasing and I decided to come in to a drop I know in 1000' and we set up. The seas were a bit more manageable. We drifted for a bit and noticed the far jug on the 100' line was drifting away. The bottle had broken free and we cranked in the bait hoping the culprit was still there but it had slashed the bait and moved on. None of us had even heard a click on the reel or saw anything out of the ordinary. We put out another fresh bait and after about an hours drift we decided to pull in and reset another drift. To our amazement another bait had been slashed with no indication or warning. As we were pulling in the last line a BIG wave slapped the side of the hull and really wet Tim down. Being cold to begin with and now wet, Tim asked what I thought. I told him the seas were picking up substantially and I was on the verge of calling it. Tim called it for me!
Monday Tim and crew met up with me at noon time and we were almost for sure that this was going to be strictly a day trip because the wind and seas were probably toooo big to attempt a night fish for Swordies. We did the normal bait run and targeted Sailfish the whole afternoon. Unfortunately there was a front moving in quickly and the fish had lockjaw and we ended up with a few cutoffs by Kingfish a big 0 on the scoreboard for Sails. We gave it a valiant effort but it just wasn't to be. Once again he said Thank you for costing him an additional $1000. I asked him what he meant and he told me that now he needed to add the Lee clamp on rod holders and center rigger, not to mention the teaser reels on the T-Top and the ribbon teasers. We ALL had a good laugh over that and I told him it was still cheaper than the last years trip which cost him about $185K for a new 330TE WorldCat.
On Friday I fished the Fossum family from Philly, Pa. The bait patch was extremely cooperative and we made our bait in 30 minutes. We made the quick 2 mile run offshore and found the sea conditions favorable. The winds and seas weren't too bad and we stayed fairly busy most of the day. We caught 8 Kingfish out of about twice that many bites, caught & released a small Silky Shark, and raised, hooked up, and lost 2 Sailfish. Overall a nice day was had by all.
Saturday I had the unusual pleasure to take BOTH of my daughters, Missy & Amy, fishing. I love and live for days like this. My youngest girl brought her "stud-ly" aka Drizzle, with her. We had a bit more trouble than the day before trying to hook & line the bait but my faithful 10' Calusa Cast Net loaded both wells with 2 throws. We had a slow north current with a brisk NW wind. We virtually ran 1 motor in gear at idle all day and stayed in a 1.5 sq mile area. We had fun catching a potpourri of fish that day. We caught a Bonito, 6 Kingfish, 2 Black Grouper, a Red Grouper, a Mutton Snapper, botched a Sailfish hookup after 2 jumps, and also lost a nice Dolphin. We had so much action we used nearly 5 dozen baits in 5 hours of fishing. If we paid attention to the surface baits the bottom rods would get hit which at one point caused us to have a nice grouper thunk his head twice before "hole-ing" us up. When we were paying close attention to the bottom rods we would miss the top bites. Either way we had a great time and good groceries for the frying pan at days end. I'm still smiling thinking of that day with my girls.
Capt. Jim
305-233-9996
beastcharters@aol.com
www.beastcharters.com