PELAGIC PIRATE

After several weeks of waiting and working on the new boat for a shot offshore, it finally came this weekend. We drove down from Atlanta to Panama City arriving early , went to dinner and then started working on installing our outrigger bases so we could get offshore and fish. Long story short, we didn't clear the pass till 3 am to flats seas and light winds.



We had decided to run out toward the squiggles and the fish south 10 to 15 miles from there looking for a nice break that Roffs had indicated on our report. We arrived offshore right at grey light with a killer sunrise off in the distance . Lures go into the water just south of the squiggles and not but 3 minutes a white marlin starts whacking a bait 10 feet off the transom , gets hooked and pops off all in a flash. Not but 15 minutes later I hear screaming from the deck again while I was in bed resting from the ride out. I jump out of bed and we have a triple hook up . I see my buddies holding two rods and one more in the gunnel screaming so I grab the last one and all three of us are hooked , then just two of us are hooked as one came off.



We fight the remaining fish and up comes to nice skipjacks all lit up purple. We clear and clean the mess and out goes the baits again. 30 minutes or so later , I am sleeping again and I hear screaming again, so i jump up and see Reggie holding on as what ever he had was smoking the reel. So we clear the spread and get Reggie into battle on what we thought may be a big wahoo. Several tense moments later up pops a huge stripped telephone pole on the port corner. We had a shot , but i let him off the leader to run a few feet as not to pull the hooks and waited for the second shot. Up he comes again off the port side being planed by the boats slow chug , where i reached out and gaffed the monster size wahoo.



Once the wahoo hit the deck we all exploded into high five and laughter as we had just landed a 60 pound Hoo in our new boat !!!!!!! we took some shots of the fish and packed it into the iceytech and continued trolling deeper into the eastern flats of the canyon. We dodged a few storms hear and there and continued to looking for any signs of life. We saw almost nothing for a few hours as we worked to the tip of the canyon. Once at the spur we started south looking for the temp break when we encountered the first of several white marlin knock downs. In fact at one point we had 4 or 5 in the spread popping from bait to bait whacking everything in the spread. I dropped back on one of the fish 5 times finally hooking the dang thing only to have it jump off very quickly. We boxed the area for a few hours and continued south 10 miles where we decided to work back toward the area we hooked the wahoo at .



We got about 5 miles back north when we get hit again by a white marlin that comes up into the spread , whacks a few baits and gone. A few minutes later the torsa 30 running straight up the middle 15 feet back gets smacked, and its on running like fire. I get the rod and see the line peeling out so fast I am thinking the fish is going to spool this little reel. We clear the spread except for the pink squid chain right off the starboard corner, and finally see what we think is a white marlin tail walking and jumping way off the stern. We start cutting back at the fish with the boat and start gaining line back at a high rate finally seeing that we have a sail fish on as it jumped right off the stern. At that moment i hear the 50 on the short corner that we left out screaming as a huge Blue Marlin smashed it. The fish ran off a thousand miles and hour straight down almost dumping the reel completely and all the While i still have a sail on my rod.We started to worry the Blue may spool the reel , when the line finally parted. A few minutes later we bill the sail fish and take a quick photo and released it back to its home. After the dust cleared we checked the broken line on the 50 and discovered the fish may have gotten tail wrapped where it broke the line above the bimini twist taking my lucky squid chain with it.



At this point we are just freaking out with all the billfish action our new boat had brought when we see a huge dolphin fish come crashing and jumping through the spread but none of us see any rods popping or running. A few seconds later we hear the sound of a pop and look to see the torsa 30 spooled ???? then a few more seconds later we hear the long bird go off screaming. We put dave on the rod and after a 10 minutes tussle of reeling in 300 yards of line up comes nothing except some tangled line on the bird. We grab the line and realize it came off the torsa, so we tie it back on and let dave reel in all 1000 yards of line back. So while he is reeling he insists there is a fish on , but we are telling him it is just the line. Well about 15 minutes later up pops a nice 25 pound dolphin fish that we added to our catch. No one was happier than me as my favorite black bart lure was retrieved in the process.



Lines go back out a few minutes later and low and behold there is a log just float right off our starboard side. As we troll by we hook up a cuda and notice a huge triple tail floating near by. We dump the cuda and circle back to catch the triple tail, and see that there is a school of extra large chickens below. So we stop at the log and start the chum and bang ! dolphin and triple tail ON ! We quickly box a dozen and move on leaving them biting. We access that we have a nice box of fish and very little ice left so we cut the trip short of a double over night trip and headed back home happy as hell with the success of our boats first trip. The boat and all additions preformed flawlessly and made the trip that much better knowing i had rigged everything.

daddytime

Geez your killing me. Great report and luck in the new boat. Congrats on the...I think you caught about everything you were targeting, good job and keep up the reports.

Offshore-911

Sounds like one heck of a trip!

David Ridenour

Wow! How do you intend to top that? Nice read,thanks for posting.

NaClH2O

Man that is an awesome trip. Thanks for the report and pictures.

MSYellowfin

Very, very nice! It sure looks like your new boat is fish magnet! I guess it is true that some boats just simply raise fish!!

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MSyellowfin
2008 54C Viking "Jacquelyn"
2010 36 Yellowfin "Forgiven"
2010 24 Hurricane Deck Boat
2001 Contender 25 (sold)

Magic236

Congrats on an awesome maiden voyage. THX for the post....

true-king

Now that's a stellar trip!

user5505

Awesome!!!! Looks like the new boat has some good juju!!!:bowdown

Keep the reports , and pictures of the boat coming!!!

Chris V

Thats the best action on the troll I've read about in weeks. Thanks for sharing.

Sounds like that new boat might just work out for ya

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