Went to Orange Beach for a few days of R&R last week that included another multi-day offshore trip in the GOM on the Sea Spray. Those guys sure know how to catch!
We left the dock at about 8:30 PM Thursday. However, as the yellowfin bite had been a just before dawn to just after dawn event lately Capt. Bill had us on our first spot at about 4:30 AM Friday rather than just at daylight as usual. We set up with a few guys chunking while some of the rest of us started butterfly jigging. I caught three pretty nice blackfin tuna about as fast as I could drop the jig and get the fish in. I continue to be amazed at how strong those little fish are. The yellowfin bite was pretty darn good and they started coming over the rail pretty quickly. They were also pretty good size fish with a couple in the 100 lb. range with a couple more in the 75 lb. range and the rest in the 30-50 lb. range. We fished there until an hour or so after daylight and the bite died off.
Then we were off to target some amberjack...aka reef donkeys.
On the way there we fixed ourselves a nice breakfast of biscuits, eggs, bacon, and venison sausage on the grill. Good eats for sure. Rather than fishing an oil rig for the AJs Bill took us to some natural structure out in the middle of freaking no-where (how do those guys find these things?) and it was on pretty much as soon as the baits hit the water. The first AJ over the rail was guestimated at about 100 lbs. Another one that was hooked up at the same time took off for the bottom and never stopped. Must have been a beast! I brought the second one over the rail which wasn't quite as big but was not far behind....perhaps 85 lbs. or so. We went through the rotation and wound up with a total of 8 or so AJ's from about 40 to 100 lbs. in the boat. If you like a hard fight and have never battled one of these critters you owe it to yourself to do it at least once. They are an entirely different kind of strong. You WILL want a fighting belt if it's anything over about 20 lbs.
After we had our fill of AJ battles we headed off to drop what I can only call a deep water trot line in hopes of finding some grouper. It's an interesting process albeit not even remotely sporting. It's meat fishing pure and simple. Once that was deployed a couple of trolling rigs were put out (actually Bill normally trolls while moving between his spots) and headed more or less to this rig:
http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=42364By now it was lunch time and there were some duck breasts and venison tossed on the grill for munchies along with some pulled pork made ahead of time by one of the guys on the trip. Did I mention that there was also beer? Lots of beer actually. LOL
We picked up a wahoo and nice mahi while trolling along and then headed on towards this buoy:
http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=42040On our first pass alongside the buoy one of the lines got smacked. It was a pretty nice wahoo. We made several more loops around the buoy picking up a wahoo on each pass. The predictability was pretty amusing really...you could count from the time the boat passed the buoy to when a line would get hit. We finally spooked them away from the area after catching 7 or 8 of them including a double hook up (one got off) on the last pass. No whales but pretty nice wahoo just the same.
We were then off to check on the "trot line" we set earlier. It was not particularly productive this time and only yielded a few golden tile fish with some conger eels. Man those things are nasty critters!
We then trolled back towards the buoy as it was more or less on the way to where the Captain planned to spend the night. Just as we passed the buoy one of the lines got hit and man it took off like a rocket! Unfortunately after a few seconds run the fish came unbuttoned. Purely a guess of course but based on the other fish we caught the general consensus was that it was likely a very nice wahoo. After a couple more passes the Captain was off to where he planned to spend the evening.
We arrived at the rig Bill had in mind just a bit after dark. Almost as soon as we started chunking a YFT was hooked up. Several blackfin fell to the butterfly jig pretty quickly as well. Not sure of the exact number but I think after a couple of yft were boated the bite died off and the Captain decided to make a move to another rig for the night.
The bite at the next rig was about the same with a couple of YFT and a few other assorted species coming over the rail pretty quickly. It was pretty cool at one point when some YFT were chasing flying fish on the surface and they wound up herding the flying fish right towards the boat. One of the mates managed to catch a few of them in a cast net.
By now it was dinner time so we threw some ribs on the grill that one of the guys had smoked prior to the trip up to the point that they only needed another hour or so on the grill. Man oh man were these ribs delicious! I am something of a rib-snob and I really don't think I've ever eaten ribs that good before. Heck - there were left overs and I ate them for the next 3 days in a row. After making a pig of myself on pig I sat on the deck with a nice CAO cigar and a glass of Crown with a splash of ginger ale while enjoying the night on the water and watching the guys catch a few fish. Soon thereafter I went back to jigging and put three more bft in the boat about as fast as I could drop the jig and get the fish in. For whatever reason(s) the bft night-time bite wasn't what we have experienced in the past. There weren't nearly as many willing fish but the ones we caught were better size than usual. Since the bite was fairly quiet and considering that the yft bite was likely to be a pre-dawn event (4:30 AM or so) I decided to turn in around 11:30 or so rather than staying up all night.
At about the expected time I was awakened by the Captain hitting the bow thruster....always a clear signal that fishing is about to happen on that boat. Splashed some water on my face, grabbed a cup of coffee and hit the deck. In a very short amount of time we added 5 or 6 more yellowfin tuna to the tally including a couple that came on butterfly jigs. About 6 AM or so the Captain decided to call it a trip and head to the house.
All in all another fun and productive adventure on the Sea Spray. It was a different sort of bite than what I've seen in my past trips of this type but there were a lot of nice fish caught. Although the nite-time bft bite (one of my favorite parts of the trip) wasn't what I've come to expect overall we caught more yellowfin and nicer yellowfin on average than I remember seeing before and the 7 or 8 wahoo were a nice treat too.
Here are a few pics from the trip.
A couple of sunset shots out on the gulf..
The best dang ribs I've ever eaten...
Some of the 'hoo in one side of the ice box...there were tuna underneath them...
Some tuna and amberjack in the other side of the ice box....
And finally some of the tuna we caught the second morning before heading in...the main fish box was full so we wound up emptying this drink cooler so we could store some fish in it...
Clearing the pass on the way back in....
The catch...
