The first day was spent launching the boat and getting out of the port by 8am. We spent some time out trying for bait, only managing to get one speedo along with 1000 trash fish. We had a strong North wind with a North current which made getting lines out away from the boat a bit of a bear. We ended up going 1 for 2, both snakes. We called it quits around 4pm and headed back to shore.
Day #2 was better, Winds blowing to the south on a North current so our baits were presented a bit better. We ran 2 1/2oz jigs, one 3/4oz jig, and one 1oz jig to cover more depth. The drifts were even with the beach so not a lot of depth change, so the day was filled iwith multiple resets trying to find the depth that would produce fish. This day saw us go 1 for 2 again, but at least my brother was able to land his first real king, a decent little 35" fish.
Day #3 saw us going out in the early AM, getting to the reef at 5:45 to work for some bait, nobody was home except the normal garbage. Back out to 200' to drift hoo's and sardines. This day Multiple drifts and no real kings, but we did catch this Red in 165' of water about 30' down. We made a quick move with about an hour left to fish and ran into about 45' of water on anchor. Put a chum block out to draw in the hoo's and was able to catch a few. We put them back out live and everyone was destroyed by a snake king in about 2 minutes. Nothing was bigger than 22" but we were running 10pd gear so it was still fun. Back to the dock by 4pm to make it out to meet Chris, Elle, JDL, Bolo and Karen for a great birthday party (thanks again, you guys rock).
20.5" red:
Day #4 started right after my birthday party, getting to the bait spot probably by 1am, the seas were rocking all night, solid 2'-4' seas which forced us to scope out a good 50 yards of additional line just to ride the buoy safely. Gogs were thick producing them on every flatline if you could stay away from the yellowtails and short grouper. My brother was in heaven flat lining. The chum slick did its job and the rods stayed bent all night. We filled the livewell up with about 10 or 12 choice sized gogs and headed off for 200' right at the crack of dawn. The winds were picking up and we were at the limit of comfortable fishing, but we were down to our last 3 hours of available time and decided to ride it out. The drift was quick with a slight south to north direction, but we were also covering the entire depth range from 200' into 65' in about 30 minutes. Flyers were thick, things looked right, great live bait... Unfortunately only Bonitos deiced to show up. It didn't matter, my little brother loved them, nothing back in Kentucky fights like a tuna and they were on the larger size of the scale. If he was happy I was happy.
Quickly cut into strip bait for future trips:
To bad I couldn't do this all 4 days...
We were back to the dock by 11, and he was back on the plane by 4pm. A great visit, I wish he could have stayed for another week, but we are definitely going to make this a regular occurrence.
Some other random shots from the trip.
I really liked this one, don't know why.
My baby!
Couldn't get away from these guys on Saturday
The spread:
Fish on!
thats an awesome report Rob. great work with the bro
