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I posted on Facebook- but figured I could share our recent trip here as well.
We had boat troubles early this year, mostly electric, but it kept her in the shop until late April. Then I had a wedding and honeymoon in June, not to mention non-ethanol gas costs an arm and a leg. Needless to say, I have not made it offshore half as much as I would have liked to this year. That is why we took a random Tuesday and decided hit the Elbow/FADs.
The name of the game was high-speed trolling at sunrise transitioning to traditional trolling after the sun got up.
We got out to the Nipple and immediately saw a sailfish free jumping. Put in three baits and set the speedometer to 15 knots and the compass pointed south. Had two hookups in about 350 feet of water. One turned out to be a bobo, the other pulled a good bit on line before coming undone (I am counting it as a 'hoo).
The sun got up and had no more bites so we transitioned to the FADs. Made it to #2, the water was a blueish-green. We start getting the deck bloody with halfway decent dolphin. By no means gaffers (but at least we have meat in the boat).
After a few passes with no hookups, we head south to #3. We hit a color change and see some tuna busting. Shortly after, a big blue starts making a show. I am not the best judge of billfish size, especially when they're in the water, but this looked to be every bit of a 400lbs fish. We had the right baits in our spread for both tuna and marlin and worked the area hard, but didn't have any knockdowns. We also live-baited a big hardtail with no luck...
Headed up the hill to a bottom spot, dropped down a bait and immediately got sharked. Said screw it and headed for the Pass. Fuel burn was around 112 gallons. High speeding makes our boat thirsty!
Here are some video-stills from a video report I made, hope you all enjoyed the write-up and the video:
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We had boat troubles early this year, mostly electric, but it kept her in the shop until late April. Then I had a wedding and honeymoon in June, not to mention non-ethanol gas costs an arm and a leg. Needless to say, I have not made it offshore half as much as I would have liked to this year. That is why we took a random Tuesday and decided hit the Elbow/FADs.
The name of the game was high-speed trolling at sunrise transitioning to traditional trolling after the sun got up.
We got out to the Nipple and immediately saw a sailfish free jumping. Put in three baits and set the speedometer to 15 knots and the compass pointed south. Had two hookups in about 350 feet of water. One turned out to be a bobo, the other pulled a good bit on line before coming undone (I am counting it as a 'hoo).
The sun got up and had no more bites so we transitioned to the FADs. Made it to #2, the water was a blueish-green. We start getting the deck bloody with halfway decent dolphin. By no means gaffers (but at least we have meat in the boat).
After a few passes with no hookups, we head south to #3. We hit a color change and see some tuna busting. Shortly after, a big blue starts making a show. I am not the best judge of billfish size, especially when they're in the water, but this looked to be every bit of a 400lbs fish. We had the right baits in our spread for both tuna and marlin and worked the area hard, but didn't have any knockdowns. We also live-baited a big hardtail with no luck...
Headed up the hill to a bottom spot, dropped down a bait and immediately got sharked. Said screw it and headed for the Pass. Fuel burn was around 112 gallons. High speeding makes our boat thirsty!
Here are some video-stills from a video report I made, hope you all enjoyed the write-up and the video:
