moore_rb
Stay Thirsty My Friends
My friends Trent, Ed and I took 3 days off work, so that instead of sweating in Phoenix, we could go down and sweat in PP, so we hooked up the boat and headed south on Sunday afternoon.
Actually, what we really drove down there for was to eat some tasty blackened Grouper and Fettuccini Alfredo at Al Capone’s, but we took the boat along just for the heck of it.
The winds have been fierce in Rocky Point the past couple weeks, but the forecast called for calming seas on Monday, and flat seas on Tuesday, so we had high hopes of being able to get offshore and catch some fish.
On Monday morning, the air was calm, but the water was still a little too rocky to run too far offshore, so we decided to run southeast to make some drops for Grouper on the slack tide and then troll for sierra when the sun got too hot. We found decent bait right outside the harbor- mainly spot tail grunts and rock bass.
We hit our first mark at about 8:30am right before the low tide, and I dropped down a live grunt, set the pole in the holder and grabbed my jigging pole and started bouncing a jig off the bottom. About 10 minutes later I get a decent strike on the jig, so I called my buddy Ed over to take the fish, since he had never felt a grouper fight. No sooner had I handed that pole over to him and the pole with the live grunt gets slammed hard. As I pryed the pole out of the holder, the fish darted right under the boat; so I scrambled to get the line over the engines to the other side and then he starts peeling drag. I was using 200lb dacron with 200lb flouro leader, and I could not lock the drag down any tighter, so I just started short pumping like crazy, and cussed at the fish not to rock me up. I don't know if he was listening, but it worked, and I got him off the bottom and about 5 minutes later I saw the largest fish I've ever caught come up to color- a very nice Gulf Grouper- easily 75-80 pounds. I was so focused that I completely missed seeing Ed pull up the 10 pound leopard that had hit the jig, but it was completely awesome starting the day off with a double hook up.
Once those two fish were in the ice box, we hosed the slime off the deck and re-set the boat for another drift. I dropped another bait and about 10 minutes later I get hammered again. It was another Baya- this one about 50 pounds.
This time, instead of resetting the boat over the same mark, we just let the boat continue to drift since the bottom was still registering as nice bumpy rock on the sonar. A while later my bait rig gets SLAMMED- the fish hit so hard that it doubled the rod over and the 200lb main line popped like dental floss, leaving me out about 10 bucks worth of fluorocarbon leader, hook, sinker, and stainless swivels. Not wanting to waste any time re-rigging, I instead grabbed my jigging rod and dropped, hoping other fish were in the area. My jig got hit almost immediately, and I cranked on him hard to get him away from the rocks. Since I had already play-faked Ed earlier by handing off that wimpy Sardinero- I handed this one off to him again so he could feel what a REAL Grouper was like. Another 50 pounder brought to gaff and slammed into the fish hold.
After that, the tide changed, the bite cooled off, and the sun got hot; so we ran to shallower water and gathered more bait fish, and then spent time trolling for sierra and drinking gallons of Gatorade, waiting for the afternoon tide change. We stuck about 10 Sierras trolling crankbaits and casting jigs, and then we ran back to our earlier spot to get ready for the high tide to shift again.
This time our baits did not get touched, and the seas were laying down flat, so we agreed to call it a day so we could get an early start to Tuesday. We left one bait drifting as we stowed the other gear and cleaned the boat up, which proved to be a good idea- just as I was about to tell Trent to reel it up so we could head in his bait gets clobbered by another big Grouper- about the same size as my first one, but Trent had already packed his belt away, so he had to fight the fish with the rod-gimbal digging into his crotch... Now he sings soprano.
So, in summary- fishing on Monday was pretty ok- All three of us managed to land the largest fish we had ever caught, and we ran back in on flat seas with the boat’s fish boxes completely plugged.
On Tuesday morning, Dave met us at the Marina early. We were expecting the seas to still be flat and we hoped to head out to the 51 reef thinking we could load up early on bottom fish and then troll for Dorado in the middle of the day; But nature had other plans for us- the seas were back up worse than they were on Monday. We gave it a shot and ran for about 5 spray-soaked miles at 20mph before stopping to come up with a plan B. We decided to head west to the 22 mile reef. We stopped at the 12 mile on the way and gathered more live bait, and arrived at the 22 at about 7:30. I was sulking about not getting out to the blue water- I really wanted to try for some Dorado. That, combined with the boat pitching and rolling in the 3 foot waves, did not give me hope for a stellar day of fishing.
After being last to catch a Grouper on Monday (and avoiding the skunk by mere minutes); Trent was fortunate enough to strike first blood on Tuesday with a monster 25-30lb Pinto that ate a squid. Ed struck next with a smaller Pinto of about 10 pounds, and I farmed a good hit on the squid-tipped scampi that I had dropped.
Since the Pintos seemed active, and we were only a couple miles from “Robert’s Pinto rock”, we had to motor over there and try it. On the first drift, Trent hit another 15 pounder, and Ed nailed another larger 20-25 pounder. Three more passes yielded no more action, so we went back to the deep drop off on the southern edge of the 22 reef. On the first pass, Ed’s bait got picked up, but the hook didn’t grab and the fish spit the bait.
The rest of Tuesday was pretty much a battle with the Trigger fish- they mauled every bait we dropped. We kept the larger ones (a couple might have even hit the 10 pound mark), and before the afternoon tide shift we ran over to the 16-210 to see if we could get into an afternoon Grouper bite. We got there as the seas again went calm, and the drift was mega slow, but we just could not get bit. We tried the top of the reef, and the east and west edges, but no Buena, so we ran back in, trailered the boat, had a beer with traded fish stories with Art Pina, and spent a couple hours portioning out our catch, bagging it up, and packing it on ice for the drive home on Wed morning.
Now, what good is all this story-telling without pictures, right? Well, the camera was confiscated at the border when they pulled us over for secondary inspection… but at least they let us pass with our ice chests loaded with fillets. J
Ok, not really- I’m just waiting for Trent to get the pics downloaded off the camera and I will post them, hopefully later tonight.
Actually, what we really drove down there for was to eat some tasty blackened Grouper and Fettuccini Alfredo at Al Capone’s, but we took the boat along just for the heck of it.
The winds have been fierce in Rocky Point the past couple weeks, but the forecast called for calming seas on Monday, and flat seas on Tuesday, so we had high hopes of being able to get offshore and catch some fish.
On Monday morning, the air was calm, but the water was still a little too rocky to run too far offshore, so we decided to run southeast to make some drops for Grouper on the slack tide and then troll for sierra when the sun got too hot. We found decent bait right outside the harbor- mainly spot tail grunts and rock bass.
We hit our first mark at about 8:30am right before the low tide, and I dropped down a live grunt, set the pole in the holder and grabbed my jigging pole and started bouncing a jig off the bottom. About 10 minutes later I get a decent strike on the jig, so I called my buddy Ed over to take the fish, since he had never felt a grouper fight. No sooner had I handed that pole over to him and the pole with the live grunt gets slammed hard. As I pryed the pole out of the holder, the fish darted right under the boat; so I scrambled to get the line over the engines to the other side and then he starts peeling drag. I was using 200lb dacron with 200lb flouro leader, and I could not lock the drag down any tighter, so I just started short pumping like crazy, and cussed at the fish not to rock me up. I don't know if he was listening, but it worked, and I got him off the bottom and about 5 minutes later I saw the largest fish I've ever caught come up to color- a very nice Gulf Grouper- easily 75-80 pounds. I was so focused that I completely missed seeing Ed pull up the 10 pound leopard that had hit the jig, but it was completely awesome starting the day off with a double hook up.
Once those two fish were in the ice box, we hosed the slime off the deck and re-set the boat for another drift. I dropped another bait and about 10 minutes later I get hammered again. It was another Baya- this one about 50 pounds.
This time, instead of resetting the boat over the same mark, we just let the boat continue to drift since the bottom was still registering as nice bumpy rock on the sonar. A while later my bait rig gets SLAMMED- the fish hit so hard that it doubled the rod over and the 200lb main line popped like dental floss, leaving me out about 10 bucks worth of fluorocarbon leader, hook, sinker, and stainless swivels. Not wanting to waste any time re-rigging, I instead grabbed my jigging rod and dropped, hoping other fish were in the area. My jig got hit almost immediately, and I cranked on him hard to get him away from the rocks. Since I had already play-faked Ed earlier by handing off that wimpy Sardinero- I handed this one off to him again so he could feel what a REAL Grouper was like. Another 50 pounder brought to gaff and slammed into the fish hold.
After that, the tide changed, the bite cooled off, and the sun got hot; so we ran to shallower water and gathered more bait fish, and then spent time trolling for sierra and drinking gallons of Gatorade, waiting for the afternoon tide change. We stuck about 10 Sierras trolling crankbaits and casting jigs, and then we ran back to our earlier spot to get ready for the high tide to shift again.
This time our baits did not get touched, and the seas were laying down flat, so we agreed to call it a day so we could get an early start to Tuesday. We left one bait drifting as we stowed the other gear and cleaned the boat up, which proved to be a good idea- just as I was about to tell Trent to reel it up so we could head in his bait gets clobbered by another big Grouper- about the same size as my first one, but Trent had already packed his belt away, so he had to fight the fish with the rod-gimbal digging into his crotch... Now he sings soprano.
So, in summary- fishing on Monday was pretty ok- All three of us managed to land the largest fish we had ever caught, and we ran back in on flat seas with the boat’s fish boxes completely plugged.
On Tuesday morning, Dave met us at the Marina early. We were expecting the seas to still be flat and we hoped to head out to the 51 reef thinking we could load up early on bottom fish and then troll for Dorado in the middle of the day; But nature had other plans for us- the seas were back up worse than they were on Monday. We gave it a shot and ran for about 5 spray-soaked miles at 20mph before stopping to come up with a plan B. We decided to head west to the 22 mile reef. We stopped at the 12 mile on the way and gathered more live bait, and arrived at the 22 at about 7:30. I was sulking about not getting out to the blue water- I really wanted to try for some Dorado. That, combined with the boat pitching and rolling in the 3 foot waves, did not give me hope for a stellar day of fishing.
After being last to catch a Grouper on Monday (and avoiding the skunk by mere minutes); Trent was fortunate enough to strike first blood on Tuesday with a monster 25-30lb Pinto that ate a squid. Ed struck next with a smaller Pinto of about 10 pounds, and I farmed a good hit on the squid-tipped scampi that I had dropped.
Since the Pintos seemed active, and we were only a couple miles from “Robert’s Pinto rock”, we had to motor over there and try it. On the first drift, Trent hit another 15 pounder, and Ed nailed another larger 20-25 pounder. Three more passes yielded no more action, so we went back to the deep drop off on the southern edge of the 22 reef. On the first pass, Ed’s bait got picked up, but the hook didn’t grab and the fish spit the bait.
The rest of Tuesday was pretty much a battle with the Trigger fish- they mauled every bait we dropped. We kept the larger ones (a couple might have even hit the 10 pound mark), and before the afternoon tide shift we ran over to the 16-210 to see if we could get into an afternoon Grouper bite. We got there as the seas again went calm, and the drift was mega slow, but we just could not get bit. We tried the top of the reef, and the east and west edges, but no Buena, so we ran back in, trailered the boat, had a beer with traded fish stories with Art Pina, and spent a couple hours portioning out our catch, bagging it up, and packing it on ice for the drive home on Wed morning.
Now, what good is all this story-telling without pictures, right? Well, the camera was confiscated at the border when they pulled us over for secondary inspection… but at least they let us pass with our ice chests loaded with fillets. J
Ok, not really- I’m just waiting for Trent to get the pics downloaded off the camera and I will post them, hopefully later tonight.
