7/1-7/3 Dry-Tortugas with Yuri

[killula]

Dry Tortugas 7/1-7/3
Fished the Tortugas this weekend with Rick, Bryan, Joe, BJ, and Hasan. Captain Yuri put us on the fish, and we had a great trip. The bite started off slow, we were picking at the snappers 1 at a time and night, the bite was very slow but the snappers were all big, averaging 9-16lbs. Bait of choice was fresh Gogs. Some large unknown big shark made dinner with about 5 of our snappers. leaving us retying all of our rigs, or just the head of a big snapper.

Rick was on fire the whole trip, Everyone including myself, Brian, BJ, and Hasan, really had to work hard for each one, while Rick was slinging one, two, sometimes three over in every spot. After the 3rd snapper, at night I struck gold, and caught a nice 32lb Black. Caught him on 40lb tackle, with a 50lb leader.

BJ, Joe and Brain all limited out on muttons, they were pretty consistent and caught some really nice sized ones to bat. The only thing we weighed was the grouper but the muttons were all mostly all between 10-20lbs.

This trip I learned that when you think you have everything figuered out, you are dead wrong. When what you are doing isnt working you gotta switch from fishfinder rig, to knocker rig. Switch from 40lb tackle to 20lb spinning tackle. When the sharks are around switch up from using gogs to using squid or crab. Something that you can sneak past the sharks and get a mutton to chew. I have to admit I lost my share of quality fish, and so did everyone else.

We all were not batting a .1000. The bite was finicky at a few spots the first night and freight train the next night. My final tally was 16 Muttons, 1 Mangrove, 1 flag YT. My largest black so far 32lbs, and a nice 10lb gag that was released. I didn't want to because we were in the atlantic side and its legal, but Yuri wanted to head to the gulf the next day to try for some big Muttons at the truck stop, in the gulf. The TS didnt produce many fish, so we moved and found the Holy Grail. A virgin unfished natural ledge, dropping from 130 - 150ft.

The bottom machine looking lit up like christmas. Almost everyone got a solid 10 fish from this spot- all of them over 12lbs - 19lbs. In a short time maybe 2 hrs of wide open bite, we ran out of cooler space and ice.

I learned alot from this trip, and can't wait to get back in October.

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set= ... 1549972565

[crashmister]

1 Month and we're there. Great report Killula! Cant wait to see more pic's.

[mmcauliffe]

1 Month and we're there.

Indeed we are Pat!!!

Thanks for the report killuia!! Something else to get me fired up about our trip...as if I needed it, lol.

[PhishingPhanatic]

Great report, did you do any vertical jigging?

We found the same thing with the crabs on our last FFF trip, one of the stops the last night was covered up in sharks, and we were the only ones catching muttons since we had crabs and the sharks wouldn't touch them.

[killula]

I did a bit of vj
1 cut off at the bottom with a Grouper jig and hogy lure tipped with squid.
2 nd time I vj caught a bonita.
3 had a small one ounce tipped with half a gog. Reeling it in I swore a 50+ lb Yellowfin or bigeye jumped 5 ft out the water and crashed my bait. I stopped my retrieve and pretended to be injured, came tight and had him on for 30 sec. Ripping line off my cabo broke my 30 lb topftl. If I had 50lb I would have a nice tuna in my cooler.

[killula]

Adding some pictures:

[crashmister]

Thought you said you caught some fish. Just don't get much better than that does it. For anyone who dosen't have a 165 Quart Igloo, the cooler is 3 feet across inside. Makes that grouper over 3 feet long. Nice job Kill!

[cudaman]

Nice report and way to get pumped up for the October trip...

[bolo]

Nice report David.

[Chevy Juan]

What a haul back man!! Congrats way to dial in on Mr. Mutton and great job on the Grouper man very impressive indeed! Keep at it doin' what you're doin'!!..