"Can't Keep us Down"
Sunday, August 22, 2010 at 9:45PM It wasn't what we expected, but as usual we try to prevail one way or another during our expeditions. While licking the wounds from the epic failure we had edured while chasing a beast on the other side of town last weekend, we still tried to get out for a little bit of action of some sort to compensate for the hole inside our souls that needed to be filled with some sort of epic fishing trip.
While weighing out an option to make a short run across to try our luck at some land-based toothy critters, a good friend Robert decided to throw another option onto our table to go out and do some commercial king and snapper fishing. I hadn't been out at sea in a while so we opted to head a little ways offshore and try our luck at some of the massive number of kings he had been tying into on a nightly basis as of late.
We netted some bait in the mouth of the inlet an hour or so before dark and headed to the fishing grounds, which were full of life early into our trip. As soon as we established a drift, the bonito moved in and started plowing through our live bait chum slick and promptly making a mess of our lines. We caught a few real fast and then decided to get in on some of the bottom fishing that has been hot for some out of the ordinary nice mutton snapper in our area. Chris dropped down and almost instantly put a solid 7lb mutton in the fish box , while we kept our eyes on the approaching storm to the west of us. Before I could even rig up Chris put another solid mutton in the boat and the bite was on! But unfortunately after two more quick drops and hard hits we had to run for cover as the storm was already ontop of us.
Unfortunately that was basically the end of our fishing trip, the barometric pressure had plummeted over the grounds after the storm had passed by and everything in the water had lockjaw. After another hour of horrible fishing, with only some short snapper and a few stud yellowtails to show for it, I glanced into the cooler and saw the fresh bonito on ice, and decided to fight boredom by trying to bow up onto a shark for a little while.
I rigged up the 9/0 and sliced a 10lb bonito into a few hearty chunks, and began to chum the carcass a little bit before i dropped a slab off the back of the transom and flat lined it into about 90ft of water. Even though the bite was totally dead on bottom, and with the kingfish bite being non-existant, I felt like we were going to get a solid pick-up on the new line drifting a little behind our boat. That feeling was confirmed in about 5 minutes as the 9/0 let out a steady pull and I drove the hook home into the culprits jaw.
After a short battle that may have lasted 5 minutes, a stout sandbar shark rose to the side of the boat, providing us with a few minutes of entertainment, and photos before we removed the hook from the newly protected species, and sent it back to its underwater playground.
All in all, it could have been a much worse trip, and weekend for that matter, but one things for certain, no matter what the weather may be , land or sea, you can't keep us down for long!
Reader Comments (2)
Nice to see you kick the sand out of your toes and put some distance between you and the beach for a change! 'Bout time. Seriously, though. Glad ya got to do some catching. Bobby would be proud. -sp/bp-
Nice shark & I imagine it's a lot different on the boat vs. the beach. ^5! on gettin out there & gettin-r-done!