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Had my brother and friend Johnny come down to Beaufort to Join Ricky and me for some meat fishing. We left Beaufort Inlet at first light and had lines in around 7:30 on the first stop. The seabass starting jumping in the cooler at a brisk pace and when we headed for the next stop at about 9:00 am we had over 40 bass and a nice fluke in the cooler.
Wanting to show the boys some variety we headed off farther to look for some warm water triggers. First stop...dead, second stop...dead. Third stop looked good on the sonar but,....dead. The fourth stop greeted us with screaming current and 250 to 300 ft, of water. We were drifting at almost 3 knots, but we made due and found some massive triggers. The amberjacks were thick and were wearing our asses out. Often all rods would go down at once with big reef donkeys on the other ends. Lots of passing rods over and under and rotating around the cockpit. We got a few triggers but the drift was just to fast to really make hay.
We had a friendly bet going on the largest meat fish that we could keep. We had to vent and release a few groupers, gags, scamp, speckeled hind, and red. We weren't counting amberjacks so it would come down to the biggest trigger it seemed. That was until we decided to drop of the edge a little further and try for the one big meat fish that was still in season. I got doubled over with a good fish, I knew it was not an amberjack and I was hoping it was the target species. After a long tug-o-war out of over 400 ft. of water, a beautiful snowy grouper was laying in the cockpit. It was the pool winner!
The trip was a blast from start to finish. Ricky was a hoot as usual, Gr8Ful was his intense fishing self, Johnny was holding his own in the ball busting dept, and between re-rigging busted up gear I managed to come out on top of the pile !:razz:
Can't wait to do it again.
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The crew minus Ricky at the dock.
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Groceries !!
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Ricky with his newly customized jigging rod !
We ended up pulling up dozens of big amberjacks and we tested ourselves and our equipment in unnatural and unholy ways. We were all tired and we only fubar'd one setup on an 7 foot shark. What a day. The meat fishing wasn't as good as we have been hitting them, but, when you have good friends and family aboard, it was an "A" trip in my book.
Wanting to show the boys some variety we headed off farther to look for some warm water triggers. First stop...dead, second stop...dead. Third stop looked good on the sonar but,....dead. The fourth stop greeted us with screaming current and 250 to 300 ft, of water. We were drifting at almost 3 knots, but we made due and found some massive triggers. The amberjacks were thick and were wearing our asses out. Often all rods would go down at once with big reef donkeys on the other ends. Lots of passing rods over and under and rotating around the cockpit. We got a few triggers but the drift was just to fast to really make hay.
We had a friendly bet going on the largest meat fish that we could keep. We had to vent and release a few groupers, gags, scamp, speckeled hind, and red. We weren't counting amberjacks so it would come down to the biggest trigger it seemed. That was until we decided to drop of the edge a little further and try for the one big meat fish that was still in season. I got doubled over with a good fish, I knew it was not an amberjack and I was hoping it was the target species. After a long tug-o-war out of over 400 ft. of water, a beautiful snowy grouper was laying in the cockpit. It was the pool winner!
The trip was a blast from start to finish. Ricky was a hoot as usual, Gr8Ful was his intense fishing self, Johnny was holding his own in the ball busting dept, and between re-rigging busted up gear I managed to come out on top of the pile !:razz:
Can't wait to do it again.
The crew minus Ricky at the dock.
Groceries !!
Ricky with his newly customized jigging rod !
We ended up pulling up dozens of big amberjacks and we tested ourselves and our equipment in unnatural and unholy ways. We were all tired and we only fubar'd one setup on an 7 foot shark. What a day. The meat fishing wasn't as good as we have been hitting them, but, when you have good friends and family aboard, it was an "A" trip in my book.
