moore_rb
Stay Thirsty My Friends
Went down last weekend and had another great trip catching big grouper... we boated several, ranging from 35 to 90 pounds and had many more than that released themselves (and our gear) on the rocks. Dave even had something gi-normous break his pole into a million splinters.
We lost the steering on the boat about 10 miles out (blown hydraulic cylinder)- that was fun; and then the Navy pulled up to check our papers while I was MacGuyvering a manual steering workaround. They were cool, and they actually gave us a roll of duct tape to assist in our jerry-rigged steering solution. For the rest of the day, Trent sat in back and steered, while I ran the throttles and gave him hand signals from the helm.
The fishing was very sporadic- we caught a few early at the low tide (about 8:00am), including an awesome triple hook up where we all got nailed at the same time (landed 2 out of 3) and then the bite went stone cold at 9:00 and we caught nothing until the afternoon tide change at 3:00, when they started hitting again and kept biting until we left for port at about 6:00pm.
Between 5:00 and 6:00 we boated the two biggest monsters of the day, and broke off at least 5 other toads. We figured that since so many large fish were biting so aggressively right near dusk that they might have been in a spawning aggregation, so we drove away from the bite to let them do their business... besides we didn't want to be out after dark with our limited steering maneuverability.
The water was awesome- even with our one-human power manual steering, we were still able to run 35 both ways.
Still waiting for the pics to show up so I can post a few, but you all know what big Grouper look like, right?
We lost the steering on the boat about 10 miles out (blown hydraulic cylinder)- that was fun; and then the Navy pulled up to check our papers while I was MacGuyvering a manual steering workaround. They were cool, and they actually gave us a roll of duct tape to assist in our jerry-rigged steering solution. For the rest of the day, Trent sat in back and steered, while I ran the throttles and gave him hand signals from the helm.
The fishing was very sporadic- we caught a few early at the low tide (about 8:00am), including an awesome triple hook up where we all got nailed at the same time (landed 2 out of 3) and then the bite went stone cold at 9:00 and we caught nothing until the afternoon tide change at 3:00, when they started hitting again and kept biting until we left for port at about 6:00pm.
Between 5:00 and 6:00 we boated the two biggest monsters of the day, and broke off at least 5 other toads. We figured that since so many large fish were biting so aggressively right near dusk that they might have been in a spawning aggregation, so we drove away from the bite to let them do their business... besides we didn't want to be out after dark with our limited steering maneuverability.
The water was awesome- even with our one-human power manual steering, we were still able to run 35 both ways.
Still waiting for the pics to show up so I can post a few, but you all know what big Grouper look like, right?
