This spring season is off the hook. I took Denis Quill and his son David out for a ¾ day trip. They came here on holiday, from Ireland, and wanted to catch some fish. We loaded up on bait as best we could and then bee-lined it to the Grunt & Sweat wreck. The first drop of the day was a nice legal Gag Grouper.
Then the real fun began as they struggle on 10 drops and managed to pull only one Amberjack off the wreck. We left there with the Jacks winning by a score of 9-1. After that we tried for a few Permit but they had the Quill's number also and he lost the only one that hooked up. We finished our day putting 2 nice Pinkies (Mutton) in the box.
Steve, Chris, and Steve Jr. had a great trip with us and Devon and I enjoyed ourselves equally as well. We had a full day of laughs and fish. The trip started off with them telling us that Steve Jr. had caught a 98# AJ and Jacks weren't on the list. OK! Bait is becoming a bit of a struggle but we managed to get enough for the entire day. First order of the day was to try for a Mutton or two. We arrived to find 2 other boats drifting the same wreck. No big deal, find a spot, put her in neutral, and drop! Seemed to work fine… for us! We boated a Mutton, an African Pompano, 2 Barracuda, and a Bonito head. After losing the rest of that Bonito to the guard dogs, we couldn't get another fish passed them, so we packed it in.
We had planned on running to a wreck to give those Permit a shot. But first, I asked Steve if he wanted to try for some Dolphin since the other charter guys seemed to have had a bite earlier on that morning in the 450-500' area. Rather than running to the wreck we trolled out and up. Within a short time we had a knock down! Since we didn't get the hook up, I made a big circle to come back through that area again. A quarter mile past the original spot, we get a hook up on the flat line, then the other flat line, then both riggers. We boated 1 of the 4 Schoolies in the original attack but #2 was replaced with a nice fish on Chris' line. #3 is an even nicer fish on young Steve's line. As young Steve has his fish about 30 feet from the boat, Devon yells "Big Bull with her!" I immediately grabbed a 20# spinner and pinned a live Ballyhoo on and cast it beyond the Bull about 10 feet. The ‘Hoo jumped once and the Bull pounced on it and it was ‘game on' for Big Steve. We gaffed the last 3 fish and the big Bull made a mess of the boat and beat his tail off, literally. Final weights on the 3 big fish were 16, 25, and 50 pounds. Do you think they were smiling? You betcha!
We finally made it to the Permit wreck and they were moving all over the place hard to locate and finicky when located. Sharks were cruising the area and we could see at least 2 of them under the boat, at all times. We managed to hook up 3 fish but they powered us into the wreck for a quick release. We called it a day and headed toward the barn.
Capt. Jim
The BEAST
305-233-9996
beastcharters@aol.com
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