# GOOD REPORT FROM SPUR ON THE WAY!



## badazzchef (Oct 1, 2007)

Will post a book tomorrow


----------



## badazzchef (Oct 1, 2007)

I got a call Friday from Daryl Wheatley of "Hooked Up" local fishing magazine. He had befriended a boat owner new to the area and wanted to Bluewater fish. He had a 68 Viking and It was no novice to raising fish. Their trophy room was accolades from Bermuda, Bahamas, Abico, Ft. Lauderdale ETC...I was stoked to be invited as the chef for the trip...My question of course was what do I need to bring for food...the answer? NOTHING Cook what the hell we got on the boat! Well Ok free trip and all I got to do is cook? Hell Yeah!

Well I did get a request for raw oysters and oyster rockefeller so I picked up 2 cases of INCREDIBLE (thanks Blalock OB) Oysters on the shell and enough stuff for sashimi items (wasabi, soy, ginger etc.) to last Sat and Sunday.

The plan was to meet at Tacky Jacks for breakfast at 8:30 am and have a meeting for the trip. The boat was at OB marina/ We arrived for breakfast and got our gameplan together. Got to the boat about 9:30 am and loaded it with everything we brought. I brought along my favorite rod which is a Penn 9500 on a penn rod) Nothing special nothing fancy just a good all aroun rod. The captain laughed at me and made a point to find sabikis so I could rig my TWIG rod...It was funny and made a good round of laughs but I carefully stowed it with the 80's and 130's (I admit it was retarded seeing my twig next to such awesome fishing machinery) Nonetheless we were loaded and underway by 11am. Now I am a green horn yahoo when it comes to Bluewater. I got my first Blue with Offroute II on my very first Bluewater trip and I was spoiled. With the trophies nad the captains and the high spirits, I knew we would catch fish...

The owner did not believe in keeping El Cazador (aka the hunter) under 30 knots...we made a quick trip to the spur (baits in by 1pm) The seas were as noted "lake-like" Beautiful water with limited tiny patches of grass...well we trolled with little luck and I hit up the renegade crew of Bodacious on the horn and they had lost a white and other than that very little in reports. I heard all over VHF how hot the Spur was and a umber of fish were tagged. Well this got me excited...except I have a passion a bit greater than Bluewater and that is Auburn football. Well 2:30 rolls around and I go in to watch the game...Of course we miss a strike but I am confident that all will play out well Auburn will beat the hell out of Tennessee and we will get a fish at halftime...

This is where we skip the horrible game and the slow trolling with no results

6 pm

We see plenty of fish busting a ways off and make our way towards every good looking bit of real estate to raise a fish but no luck. By now the crew is discouraged and the "other game" is looming. I decide to start dinner and watch the game and wait for the sword bite to turn on. We set out the drift chutes and fire up the grill...stern lights are on and the sea life at dusk just lights up. I see juvie grouper, filefish, triggerfish, flying fish, sargasum fish all at the underwater stern lights. The deepwater jellies were awesome and so were the various glowing plankton. After about 10 minutes of this, the flying fish and squid show up so thick that we are scooping them with dip nets. I decide to bust out the old twig and put a "flatline" out with a 4 inch flying fish as bait.on the starboard riggers were our 2 sword lines at 200 and 400 feet. My flat line was on port and gets a hit within 10 minutes of beingout. I missedthe fish withouteven a hookup...Oh well. We were drifitng about .9 knots andwe drifted in such a way as to make my flatline go into thesword lines...I did not want to piss the captain off so I quit that strategy...

SKIP to 9 pm

Alabama is beating the hell out of Ga and I am on the boat with a SLEW of bama fans...Dinner is served and I am bored out of my mind so I brew a plan...

we are in 1200 feet of water...There are 4 guys on the boat age 14-35from a crew of 15and we were the hardcore crew that wanted to catch something. I had this crazy dumbass plan to put 2 lbs of lead on a 130 and about 6 hooks baited with squid and drop it 1200 feet. The 4 of us would take turn cranking it all back up and hope to catch some exotic new found species of fish. Well after the Deckhand talked usout of it(probably a good thing) I decided I had to catch a fish...

I asked all the veterans what we could do to catch a fish the only reply was wait for the sword bit that HAD to happen around 2 am...it was now about 10pm and half the crew was drunk and happy from their big win. Idecided that with all the life under the lights, there had to be some kind of fish under theboat and so I decided to bust out the twig again and jig...Again I was told it was a crazy idea as we were in open water and that there not fish in the area...the bottom machine showed some schools of bait under the boat. I dropped down a diamind jig about a hundred feet and got slammed on the way down...HELL YEAH IKNOW THAT FEELING IT IS A FISH PULLING!!!! Well Ipulled in a decent blackfin and lost it at the boat...This got a good rise out of the crew as they were all inthe "lets f*&k with the Auburn fan" mood.

Most of the crew were personal good friends so I took it all in jest and took the abuse of losing the first hooked fish of the trip. Well what do you do but try again. And I did and I lost the damn fish again...

So I thought about it and looked at my setup...diamond jig on 80lb braid...ahh loose drag...tighten the drag down and drop again...bam hookup and fight on and finally a fish in the boat! All of this captured by "Hooked up" camara man Travis ( to be seenon tv after much editing) Well call me what you will but those 8-10 lb blackfin fight and after about 5 of them on a jigging expedition I got wore out. Well one of the crews son Elliot joins in with the jigging and he and I stay up all night jigging blackfin andhaving a blast...Every time we get tired we would siton the deck and nod off and then bam a flying fish would jump in the boat. One time a damn ugly ass fish that looked like a barracuda and a ribbonfish jumped inthe boat right by me feet...He looked incredibly hungry and had fangs that I am certain would have taken off a little toe...

Well to summarize up to this point, we had about 10 good blackin on ice and no hits on the swordrods... fast forward to 4 am

The topwater begins to get wild about 50 yds behind the boat. We bust out the old twig again and topwater some more tuna. Now this is exciting to me to sit in the bridge and watch someone work a topwater plug and get a strike...I was coming out og my chair everytime. I mean it was incredible! What kept us going was the fact that we had to catch a yellowfin...I mean there had to be one mixed in with this mess of Blackfin...

Well I was convinced there were big fish under theboat...the bottom machine showed HUGE blobs at 140-170 feet...It was amazing thepicture that the bottom machine showed us... I took an 80 wide and put 28oz of lead on it and a 100lb leaderwith a live flying fish...I dropped it down to 150 and waited...and waited and waited... Jump to 6am

Yeah 6 am and nothing good to report...I know what the reader is thinking a lot of typing and reading with no decent fish...I agree but...well there is more

6am the son is showingsome color off to the east...by now the other crew members beign to stir and shake off the hangovers...Coffe is going and the talk begins of what we are going to do. Shawn Clemons owner of Shady Lady in OB was a crew member andhe was for getting baits ready to deploythe minute we areunder way as he is certain with all that showing on the bottommachine there has to be a marlin under the boat. The deckhand did not get his point and fooled around a bit and we were getting ready to get under way.the 80 was still down and after hearinf this Idecided to bring up the bait to 80 feet and see what happens. Well about 6:15 we had a decent tuna sky right off the back of the boat and 30 seconds later my 80 starts singing! Iset the hook and fish a huge fish...to no avail I lose it within 5 minutes....no solid hookup yet again...I was certain it was a yellowfin...

Well we fire off the engines and begin our dawn troll. I go into teh galley to begin breakfast. I turn to look at the crew getting baits ready to deploy and out behind the boat about 20 yds I see a huge school of baitfish and what looked like swrds slashing the water...I mean this scene was out ofa cartoon where billfish look like they are fighting each other with swords....I run out onto the deck and point it out...the whole crew was amazed and this put the deckhand into a frenzy deploying baits....we circled the area but yet again luck wasagainst us. Has someone listened to the seasoned Bluewater fisherman I feel confident we would have had a shotat a huge yellowfin and Blue. Instead we waited about an hour before there was more action. The rest of the day went the same...we had three kncodowns but only was could be verified as a pointy fish...still no bilfish to be tagged....

To save time and to keep my fingers from falling off..I am going to summarize this whole trip!

I had a blast I caught fish and we even stopped in a grouperhole at 220 feet (another whole book) We slaughtered the bottom fish with huge gags, good scamp, anda good sized blacktip shark. I also learned a lot:

1. Nothing should ever be considered stupid or pointless when it comes to fishing technique...when the fishing is slow try anything...in my opinion catching a good mess of blackfin saved the trip

2. if day one of trolling produces nothing...whould day two be done the same way? My point is in the boat were were in we could have made the Petronius in no time at all and trolled some structure. The captain had fished the Gulf 2 times before this trip...some of the seasoned locals made a point to suggest some structure and maybewe could have caught a marlin there. Oh well what do I know...

3. We were all good fisherman but we were all distracted with various things...at times there were 7 lines in with nobody on deck...nobody to drop back on missed strikes. 

All in all It was still a great trip and it will show up on tv here soon. Will post the date of the airing. Sorry I bored you with no fish but still maybe someone can learn something from this trip.

Thanks for reading


----------



## [email protected] (Oct 4, 2007)

hey chris good readingand report,sounds like a trip of a lifetime. good to see you didn't give up. it's been awhile how are things going?


----------



## Realtor (Oct 1, 2007)

cool read, thanks.

Jim


----------



## Captain Woody Woods (Oct 2, 2007)

damn i wish i could have gone with you chris. one last hurrah and i may have even let you order me around a bit. especially since live bait taught me how to roll sushi since i last saw you. sounds like you were on a sweet ride to say the least. maybe next time hit me up and i would have given you a roff's report as well as my password to hilton's offshore and that way you could have at least printed that out for someone else to interpret it lol. quit being so sketch and answer my PM's



that school of bills sounds like whiteys....we have seen them school like that a lot in the past 2 summers.


----------



## PMACDIDDY (Jul 13, 2008)

Super entertaining report! I don't know how you managed not to jump overboard dealing with those Bama fans. Send recipes!!!


----------

