Stressless

James has been doing his thing again in '08 being a great Dude and calling new friends and old to "put meat in the boat". A number of us signed up to head out Sat and the plan was to run to the rigs and troll for Tuna and 'hoos. As everyone know no plan lasts past the first 5 seconds of execution and Sat morning was no exception.



We met at the designated parking lot at 0400 - left the house at 0300 and got there at 0355 alarm at 0230 makes for a STRONG cuppa joe to get the eyelids pealed apart. Anyway for a trip with James on the Reel Feisty I would have stayed up all night - That's called foreshadowing. While we were standing there in the 78F humid wind (we were on the lee side of WalMart) wind the wind whipping around we all were thinking this just might be a looonnngggg day - but no-one bitching or turned around and went home.



I met Chris (1923) and Spencer (Southernangler) in the lot and then Jon pulled up, he's a buddy of Scott (brnbser) that has a deployment coming up and then Scott and James pulled up. Greeting were passed around and a few glances at the cloud deck scooting to the North. Never heard what happened to ironman but would have liked to meet to you.



Tasks to get moving were passed around and we all met a the boat that had been splashed the previous night. Got loaded and everyone put on their foul wx gear - bean bags were placed around and the Reel Feisty roared through the pass. The waves in the early AM we stacked and choppy. Not really that big 1-2' chop on 2-3 swells the Reel Feisty handled it fine and we could scoot when either 1-2 Chop or 2-3 Swells were intermingled but once or twice we "launched" off the Top of a Chop and Top of a Swell combo and nobody really wanted to run 70+ miles and not be able to stand-up when we got there. We fought it for a little over 2 hours heading into the waves, turning off starboard and really could get the speed we needed to get there.



The crew was perfectly fine to do what James wanted to do and around 30 miles with a couple squalls behind us and gray, mostly cloudy skies we pulled up on some rocks that James had stolen for NOAA.







Now remember we were after tuna/'hoos and rigs so most of the tackle and rods in the boat were Tiagra and med-heavy Spinning rods. Both Scott and I are pretty hard core jiggers so we broke out the jigs and and hooked up the spinners (I brought my TN40 jigging outfit) and so that's the standard outfit. A couple of the guys had never jigged before so at the first rock I got down first and BAM nice bend in the pole and up comes a nice Scamp on a long Willimson jig. Well that got the guys to believe that this jigging thing might have some truth to it. The first spot was on fire with Almaco Jacks and we we're exactly sure of size of creel limit so we kept 6 big ones. Here's spenser with a nice one before he started bitchin' about catching too many!







John's bowed up in the background...





We all started jigging and the clouds started to break up - we stripped off the foul wx gear and the plan changed to catch what you can as the sea state really didn't give us a break to hit the rigs. So we started rock hopping to the SW and picking up a Really great fish box. The Scamp seemed to like the jigs as well.



Stressless's best Scamp





Scott had a nice one on that "Got Away" but when the jig came it was noted that "That's gonna leave a mark..







While we were hitting the first rock SW Spencer caught his first AJ on a jig - on a spinning outfit and what a great set of verbiage he used! When he got it up it 'might' have streched to 28" and we all said toss him back as we knew there would be bigger ones out here. Well we all ribbed everyone in the boat - young jokes/ old jokes and generally we forgot that we weren't hitting the rigs only that a group of guys were out fishing with James and having a great time. Part of that was Spencer as a competitive young man and not to be outdone by my Scamp - he started keeping a running tally of my catch and his and trying to say he was in the lead.



While we were rock hopping we passed a couple items and tossed to them - nothing under the turtle -







The standard Alien eggcase - which chicken dolphin were all over. Dropped for bigger ones underneath but no joy...







About 1100 the seas laid down some and we ran out further to the SW and hit a cut off rig. Now we knew the AJ's would be here so we all got game faces on and.. well - look.











Chris's first keeper AJ













After a couple drifts and 4 AJ's and another nice Scamp we went to go for another species - The Mongo Mingo. Capt James and Scott were having a blast watching us have a blast and so it goes on James's boat. Chris and I switched over to chicken rigs with squid and started putting Mogo Mingo's in the boat!







Scott has these deadly little jigs so he breaks out a bluegill pole and he's trying to get a mingo, well not that's not what slammed his rig...











We had a load of fish in the boxes and when Scott and I went to get them re iced we realized the fish /water had burnt most of the ice so we made a decision to quit early with a great box of fish and get them on ice. We zipped home with a following sea on the Reel Feisty and got everything cleaned up and fish divvied up.



Chris's first Keeper AJ

John's first AJ

Spenser's first jigging experience

A great time had by all!!



Lastly there are ARS in the GOM contrary what "they" want you to believe Chris spent a good portion of the day taking a census of each spot... one example...







Tally Board

Lots of ARS

4 AJs

7 Scamp

12 or so Mingo's

4 or so chicken 'pins

6 Almaco jacks





And two of these guys - didn't keep them as we did't know what they were = any ideas?





Also guys in the http://www.gulfcouncil.org/Beta/GMFM...ure2008web.pdf Almaco are included in the 20 Reef Fish limit and there is no Min or Slot length that I could find.



A look at the Mongo Mingo's



:toast

Stressless

ironman172

Never heard what happened to ironman but would have to meet to you........?

Great report!!!! would be better with pic's though.......Did I miss a trip? for free.....darn....just kidding.... I am on this sat. trip....praying for gooooood weather and sea's....:angel

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Bill
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ironman172

NOW THATS A GREAT REPORT!!!!!!awesome pic's thanks for sharing!!!!!

The smiles say it all!!! just GREAT

did I miss a free trip?:doh

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Bill
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mpmorr

That is what I am talking about, good times, good folks and having fun. Way to go and great pics. Time is ticking away but not fast enough for me.:bowdown

Capt. Alex Pinney

those two fish look like cusk eels.. excellent eatin

David Ridenour

Great post! Way to go James.

<SPAN id=_ctl1_ctlTopic_ctlPanelBar_ctlTopicsRepeater__c tl2_lblFullMessage>Never heard what happened to ironman but would have <U>liked</U>to meet to you........?

jimmyjams4110

Those two are NOT cusk eels. I think they are "slippery dicks",not formal name, just the local lingo. I really don't know the formal name.

Sam Roberts

tell spencer to quit i highsticking that rod it might break lol :moon

brnbser

as always, I had a blast being out on the REEL FEISTY.

I had some last minute news and asked James to add an angler for me and him being the way he is my coworker (John Robinson) was on for the trip. John is an active duty Controller here with me and recieved suprise orders Wednesdaymorning leave the first of July for Iraq. I wanted to get him offshore as he's never been off more than a few miles.

Thanks James, he had an absolute blast. He had his first real offshore trip and his first AJ. He boated a 33" AJ after much grunting and groaning and asking for a wuss belt. His eyes got kinda big when I dehooked it and informed him it was just a few inches above legal and that we had ambitions of making it to the 255 where the bigger boys live. Still got the grin fo rthe pic.......



here was a double from Bob and Spencer, I think he got you on this one Bob.........



the two that Bob caught on a chicken rig had me stumped at first but I'm pretty sure they are called slippery dicks, I believe they are a member of the wrasse family......

We where kinda concerned on the Almaco's, I couldn't remember the creel so we decided on a one per even thought we caught alot. I couldn't be certain on the size either and remember it was either no size requirement on Almaco or 14-22 on Lessers so all six we kept where right at the 19-20" range. They where a blast on the light spinner!

We did have another odd one.......Bob had a queen snapper, a first for him I believe also.

That should give ya'll an idea of how deep we where jigging and bottom bumping. I think I got Spencer and John hooked on jigging. It's definately my 2nd favorite thing to do next to trolling.

Again James, thank you! I had a blast.

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Capt. Scott Brown

http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com...sp?gallery=351

sealark

I believe that the mystery fish are Grey or Golden Tile fish the coloration is not good enough to tell. If there was a bit of yellow in the pattern they were golden tile. Good eating!! If grey tile edible but not as good as Golden Tile.