Robin's Reports

DIVING & TROLLING
by Robin

On Tues, 5/17/11, Jack and his coworker Chuck and Chuck's son, Adam decided to play in the ocean. Jack used to dive a LOT years ago but has given that up due to his sinuses not cooperating. About once a year, Chuck joins us on our boat for a fishing trip and we always do well.

Of course, it didn't hurt that they were wanting to hunt flounder and it is a fine white meat. It's up there in my top 5 or so list of fish to eat.

Jack headed out early and they first stopped at Damacles wreck. Chuck and Adam dove in. Vis was 10-15 ft. They shot 2 flounder on the first drop.



While they were resting, Jack rode out to 130 ft and set his first trolling line out. He didn't even get a 2nd line in the water when the first line screamed. Apparently, this bull made 6-10 ft leaps out of the water and crashed hard on its side. It went bonkers. After Jack reeled him back in a 3rd time, Chuck went to gaff and missed (it happens....) and the bull took off a 4th time. Nuts. The 2nd gaff was the charm and he went on the deck floor. (It ended up weighing 30 lbs at the dock scale.)

Now, here lies the problem. They brought the small cooler to stack flounder in. I told him at 5:45 am that he should bring the big cooler. I'm sure he was kicking himself without me saying, "I told you so." LOL. Oh and not to mention, this is the cooler with the broken lid.

With much arrangement of fish & ice, Jack manages to contort the mahi into the cooler and Adam ties the lid to the base with the dock lines. I'm sure it looked funny. I think this is why Jack doesn't take a camera on his fishing trips.



Ok, so they continue trolling another hour and get nothing. Back to diving.

They head to the Lead Wreck. As Chuck says, "It was a perfect drop right onto the wreck." Vis was closer to 20 ft in spots. Thermocline was still there. Adam shot one flounder that was sitting on another flounder (stacked like pancakes). It caused my underwater excitement as they tried to string them up without the lower one swimming away. Jack said he saw lots of air bubbles and next, a bag of air holding 4 flounder comes to the surface. How cool is that??

So, it was a great day for the guys. Even after splitting the meat, we froze back several bags of fish dinners, plus had yummy flounder sandwiches on Wednesday.





While cleaning fish at the fish tables (at marina), they would throw over bones & skin. Here is a picture of a sea turtle that grabbed the tail of the mahi.





Jack is offshore today with Jeff. They were going back for more mahi in 130 ft. I believe he said something about a nice bunch of weeds developing out there.

I think my turn comes on Friday, if Jack has any energy leftover. I want to do some easy tripletail hunting since the water is suppose to be flat. I'd love to get up at the crack of dawn and look for rolling tarpon, but I don't think Jack will be so easy to wake after all day offshore today. ha ha.

God bless & Happy Fishing,
Robin