Team Rebel Takes the Block! (NorthEast Shark Report) 7-17/7-18-10

Well it has been a short while since Tyler went back to Yankee land to chase after the cold water fish with the new southern mentality of fishing and metal riding shotgun. But nonetheless, he has had a strong showing up North and will continue to do so until his return to the great South East. Not to be left out of all the fun we are having down south here, teammate Tyler O’Toole embarks on the journey to Block Island for some Shark Slaying action.

This is what Tyler Reported in to Coroprate Command :

“ Our trip started at 4am Friday, July 16, 2010. Destination: Block Island. Loaded up the Regulator with our gear and we were off the dock by 6:30am. Joining me was Eric Christie (a long time friend and fishing partner), and his father. We had an 80mile run North, out to the fishing grounds ahead of us and we couldn’t be more excited being that it was our first shark trip of the season. We couldn’t be blessed with a more beautiful morning. 

 

Water calm as glass made it an easy 2 hour run where we made our first stop in Montauk to pick up some essentials: Chum, Bait, Tackle, Food etc. From there we were off, in route, 30miles off of Block Island where we would set up and begin our drift for the big boys! On our way out we made a quick stop to catch a few fresh Bluefish before we continued on, to the fishing grounds. We reached the fishing grounds around 11:30 in around 190ft of water, water temp 71.4 .We set up our gear and began the long tedious process of chumming, chumming, and more chumming. We set 4 lines out on balloons, 2 surface baits on the outriggers, 1 mid water, and 1 deep water. 2 hours pass and no takers, 1 by one we checked our baits but the weren’t even touched, hm.. well I guess… BANG!! The line pops from the rigger (surface bait) and the fish starts peeling drag, I pick up the rod and slam the lever in gear, bow up, FISH ON!!!! Buddy Eric throws the fighting belt on me and I begin to work the fish in.

20 minutes later we see the first sight of color. Blue Shark, studd in fact around 8ft. Eric takes hold of the leader, slowly leadering the fish in close to the boat as his father takes a few quick shot before its time to cut the wire.

 

Snap leader is cut, safe release, no harm done! High fives all around, Woo Hoos, we are pumped up now! 30minutes later when hear, tick, tick, tick, zzzzzhhhhhhh line peels off the reel once again. Buddy Eric picks up the reel and Fish On!! Blue Shark!! About 6ft, beautiful looking shark!

Later on that day we hooked into 4 more sharks in the 4-7ft range. Finally ending the day with a double header! Both Eric and myself doubled up on 2 Blue Sharks, and boy was that a fun way to end the day!

We ended the day with a nice batch of Blue sharks, unfortunately no other species were caught that day but a fun day none the less. We then headed back to Block Island where we would spend the night and rest up for the next days stripped bass adventure.

  Saturday was a short day for us, waking up around 10am and heading out for a few hours to do some stripped bass fishing, inshore near the Island before heading home. Fished with live eels, both Eric and I caught numerous Bluefish to 14lbs and a bunch of bass to 32lbs.

 

After a great morning of fishing we called it a day. Packed our gear and began the long journey home. Looking back, a few days now writing up this report is was a trip that will never be forgotten and another mark in the books for Team Rebel; tackling the species from the Northeast!”

Until next time.. Team Rebel Out!

Everbody want's in on some of Florida's action!

 A new aspect we will be adding to our site starting today, are specific stories detailing bizzarre and interesting occurances as we travel around the state during our endless pursuit of big-game and our will to spread the word of conservation to all sportsman across the world. And, for our first "happening", do we have a barn-burner for you!

 The right hand man for Team Rebel's operation (Chris Nicklin) decided to take a stroll down the beach a few days ago during the afternoon to try to get on some beach Snook feeding action, but what Chris found last week was not the traget species, in-fact it wasn't a species at all, but a refugee raft that had washed ashore behind what locals reffer to as "Millionaire Mile" on the South Eastern Coast of Florida. The story directly given to me from Chris wasn't the most exciting, he didn't watch the raft come ashore and see a hoard of reugees making a mad dash for the highway, but rather a quiet and somewhat somber discovery. Chris approached the raft to take a couple of pictures and make a few first hand observations before pressing on in his pursuit of the linesider, but from what Chris had said, the materials that made up this craft were somewhat simple and basic, these being styrofoam, Thing galvonized sheet metal, and wood splints of some sort. Chris also noted that the sheet metal had holes poked in it all throughout the craft wherever the metal was present, possibly from being part of an old roof on Haiti or Cuba.

  But the most interesting part of this story is the lack of the Coast-Guard markings on the craft. Usually, when a craft is reported or found, the Coast-Guard will go out to the location of the craft and spray paint it with some sort of neon color, to signifiy that the craft had been found adrift, with or with-out humans inside of it.

  What happened to the builders and occupants of this raft? The truth is we may never know. They may have met a watery fate at sea, or perhaps saw the lights from shore close enough and tried to swim to the U.S.A , maybe they reached land alive, maybe they didn't. But one thing is certain, in the end, you just never know what will happen during your travels in the state of Florida, and thats why we always go back for more.

Team Rebel Report 6-19-10 (Finally back in Action!)

Before anybody tears my head off, we are sorry for the slight hiatus we have been on as of late. We have had a lot of issues to deal with, work, trucks etc. life in general, but the great news is we are back and ready to kick some fish ass! It has been a while so we are ready to tear into the water at full throttle once again! This newest chapter in Team Rebels legacy began yesterday, nothing too exciting, but it was great to be out on the water again!

  We loaded up the truck around 9 a.m. to head to one of our favorite places to wade fish, or fish period for that matter, just because of the sheer size and numbers of the fish living on this flat we discovered when we were about 16. I enlisted the help of Meathook to rendevous with Brendon and Taylor to the north to fish the corect tides. We headed North, but not before meeting opposition from multiple severe thunderstorms on the way up. We reached the flat by noon time and began wading to net some bait............Then we swam across a channel to net some bait................then we swam across another channel to net some bait..........and before we knew it we were almost a mile from the flat and bait was no where to be found. Thus presenting a large problem to overcome.

  We walked for a few hours, to find nothing but some serious gashes on the bottom of our feet and a sunburn to match. The fish were stock piled on our flat and we ended up with only two baits to fish with. I took the 12inch mullet and tossed it to the edge of the flat and fed it a little bit on line as it tried to head up current of the tide, a giant boil soon engulfed the spot where the mullet previously was located and a thump on the line was unmistakeable. After a few brutal headshakes and a couple of close calls I was able to land this stout snook onto the flat. Not by any stretch the biggest we have captured here but nice to feel a stout fish again for the first time in a little while. The other bait we had Meathook fished it, within a minute or two he got blasted and set-up a little too early and pulled the bait out of the Snooks mouth. All in all not to bad of a day, looking forward to heading back with more bait!!

Until Next time....

Team Rebel out!!!