The jaws will make a sweet mount.
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Had to unbox the tuna just to fit the Mako down into the bottom of the fish box. Fish box is 12ft long, the Mako's tail was pitched up to make it fit.
Just barely made it.
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First light finds us trolling Flower Garden Banks. The only coral reef along the American coastline in the Gulf of Mexico. It's a pretty darn special place! The only other living coral reef in the 48 American continental States - South Florida along the Atlantic - Keys region.
My new Wahoo setup with a well Wahoo beaten Marauder. This day of trolling, it simply wasn't gonna happen.
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Mako Mike
Trolling the Western Bank with anticipation on day one.
Rack right and Kilo99 left
The Italian - Carlos - Cisco network engineer type - works for the VA. We worked together during the dot com days in Austin. Good times!
So the decision was made to stop the troll and change tactics to drift fishing the coral bank. Rock Hind finds it's way on deck with Glen left, Jesse next, Kyle next, Cap'n Timmy and Mako Mike.
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Cap'n Timmy holding one of my Sea World fish. I thought it was a Parrot Fish - color is similar but it's something different. I have no idea what the heck it is since I can't remember what it was called much less how to spell it.
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And another Sea World experience.
Kyle holding this fish with Glen staring on.
Kyle previously worked and fished aboard Red Rooster out of San Diego. Another long range tuna boat that fished the California Baja in style...back in the day.
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And the day bottom fishing continued with all kinds of different species. We finished and headed offshore to Gunnison, to try our hand at Yellowfin Tuna near a deepwater Spar. Once on scene, we note hundreds of flying fish. So many in fact, they literally swam under the boats lights without a care in the world. We scored blackfin tuna down around 30 - 100ft but, they too, didn't come up to feed on any of the flying fish. Apparently they were feeding on something else down deep....my thought is squid? We hooked a few blackfin on glo jigs but the barracuda became a nightmarish situation. No yellowfin, so we opted to head back to the Flower Garden scene. But on the sail there, we stopped and deep dropped for swordfish with two rods rigged for swords. Another rod was rigged for tilefish/barrelfish and maybe one of those weird Angler Fish
Picked up Tilefish and some freaky fish with long whiskers dangling down off it's belly. Weather and currents were perfect for fishing deep all night but, our gamey was Wahoo and drifting deep was going to cut into our ability to be on wahoo at first light. So off we sail, returning to the East Flower Garden bank.Comment
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Day two next.................Comment
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The Jaws for that sweet mount.
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Great pictures !Comment
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Go Rob Go! Finally. Stop processing all that fish and process more photos, please!
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Thanks, Rob! Another good group of captures! I'm glad to see you girls could get it done with no adult supervision!
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So we setup for the troll on Eastern Flower Garden Bank. We spot Sparkles Weather Buoy - the buoy he snagged last year right at sunrise. With 7 - 9 lines in the water, lower and upper deck we troll a majority of Islanders rigged with Ballyhoo and a few Halcos and Marauders. I rigged my new Wahoo setup with my trusty super sized Orange/Black Marauder and setup as stick two on the starboard transom. Two other baits sit outside of me, one riding the starboard outrigger and another, back in the wash. As luck would have it, my rod with the super Marauder gets slammed with a smoking run. The sound of a Wahoo hook-up is unmistakable, the reel screams at speed like nothing else and if you don't do something about it quickly, hundreds upon hundreds of yards of line will be burned off the spool. These fish swim up to 60 miles per hour and they hit fast and run faster.
Rod and reel worked like a champ and the first wahoo of the trip gets decked.
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Then things simply went on and on out to 21 wahoo. Sharks attacking hooked wahoo - cutting them in half. And during one freaky situation, right over the coral reef directly with a hooked up wahoo, a pair of 100 plus pound Amberjack come up to the surface and attack a hooked wahoo with one Amberjack, the biggest of the pair, getting airborne in a freaky aerial assault as this pair of Reef Donkeys attack to kill a good sized Texas Wahoo.
These trips always have some sort of wild scene from Nat Geo on deck. It's completely unpredictable what goes down but there is always a common theme, something is getting killed by something else and these animals, some tip the scales at the level of the biggest animals roaming in North America and beyond - domestic and wild.
Mahi Glen and Jonathan (John John). We are gonna miss John John, he's moving on into running Oil Provider boats out of Morgan City LA - working that off and on schedule. 100 ton licensed - it's a new employment direction for Jonathan but, one thing is certain, he will fish with us when we sail, work scheduling allowing the time to sail and fish with the gang.
Kilo 99 - his first fish was hammered by a shark. All of the shark attacks were made by fish, anywhere from 8 to well over 10ft in length. I suppose as we trolled, these bigger sharks simply followed us astern waiting for their opportunity? These are very intelligent "top-tier" predators and they have been known to swim astern vessels that run slow enough with a feeding opportunity.
Chuck's first wahoo - not a virgin anymore but, his wahoo was hammered by a shark. At least the upper loins are intact and the hoo bled out on it's way into the boat. The lure is a Halco red/white 190 - great lure company out of Australia - we use the crap out of them.
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Glen's preferred spot - top deck with a bait so far back - LMAO! He was so far astern, 100 - 150 and at times 200 yards or so that if and when he hooked an undesirable barracuda, instead of stopping the boat and reeling it in, it simply skipped and bounced till either we hooked a wahoo and stopped and or the cuda skipped free.
On one occasion we witnessed a Drowned Cuda, drowned CUDA IN SEAWATER LMAO! Reeled up, this Cuda's belly was full of water and literally 2 times it's normal diameter - full of seawater
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