# evelyn gale rig trip 12-3



## reel_crazy (Oct 1, 2007)

http://www.pensacolafishingforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=14178&stc=1&d=1291595811left out of island cove at 3pm or so fri afternoon on my first rig trip in 50 forevers it seemed. crew was dan , mark , ryan and matt. ride out started slower than we had hoped but managed to do 17-18 knots quartering against the afternoon west wind.. as soon as the sun set it stopped and the seas finally layed down.. just around dusk mark spotted what looked like a boat directly on our path, had the radar set at 12 miles and it was not showing anything.. reduced it down to 3 miles before it showed a blip and as we got closer i had to put the auto pilot in man so as not to hit it.. we kept trying to figure out what the boat was doing as it looked really dark and had no lights , finally we could see it was not a boat but a 3-500 gallon drum / tank.. sure could of messed up somebodies day.. this was approx 15 miles past the pass on a course for the petronious, we looked for it on the way back in but did not see it.. rest of the ride out was ok just a bit nerve racking because it so dark.. 

Got to the petronious and just one other boat was there, we started jigging and matt gets 3/4 of a bf right away.. mark donated several rigs to sharks/cudas as well.. gator jigs were the bait of choice , matt was steadily bringing them up tho he a bit of an advantage .. he could watch his jig go down (on the fish finder) and as soon as it hit the line of fish stop it and he was hooked up.. we could even see the fish come up after the jig.. most of the time the fish were hanging around 100-120 feet , there was another group at around 200, i finally managed to get a jig down there and got hooked up good.. almost got spooled , starting getting it up and wham lost the whole works.. 

after boating a dozen or bf we headed over to the marlin.. on the way there we heard a lot of chatter from the folks at the ram .. sounded like that was the place to be.. tho no one was sharing any real info.. one boat was at the marlin along with a pod of dolphins.. we managed a couple more bf , and since there was no point in trying to chunk with dolphins aound we headed over to the ram.. 

got to the ram and only one boat was there apparently we missed the party, made a lap around it and was impresssed by the amount of bait/fish/ some sections lit up the whole water column from 200 feet to the surface plus bf busting out of the water etc.. 

got the chunking rods ready and matt filled a 5 gallon bucket with bf and boston macks.. we were ready.. started chunking around 3:30 or so with zero results.. matt did mange one stud bf shortly after i mentioned that the nice thing about chunking is we dont catch any bf.. 

morning came and same thing.. zero surface activity.. made several laps around it and only a couple skip jacks on a cedar plug.. 

we went back to the marlin and there were several boats making laps around it , talked to someone on the radio who said they got a couple 50-60 lbers earlier in the morning on ballyhoo but nothing since.. we made several laps and except for some bonita busting it was dead tho the water looked much better than the ram.. 

went back to the pet, water there looked even better than the marlin, spent some time feeding the sharks and barracuda with the rest of our chunk bait , there was a few dolphin in there with them but we could not get baits to them.. 

started home around 10:30 as the west wind was picking up , ran 20 21 all the way back tho we did more bobing and weaving than roy jones .. the auto pilot was running at 16 degrees to maintain a 22-23 degree course... 

ran a across loads of grass from the pet to around 20 miles from the pass.. some large patches and one or two half way decent lines.. 

rich


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## Ultralite (Oct 1, 2007)

good report rich...glad ya'll got some tuna and glad ya'll were paying attention to the radar...


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## MSViking (Oct 11, 2007)

Some days the bite is hot and somedays the bite is not. Friday was one of those "not" days, but it was still a great night on the water. Who knows, next time might be off the hook for all of us, let's hope so.


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## Aqua Therapy (Jul 25, 2010)

Looks like you guys worked hard for your fish. How do you manage to weed out the blackfins chunking?


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## Realtor (Oct 1, 2007)

hey Rich, I have come across that huge floating tank before as well. It is attached to the bottom, I have it marked in my chart plotter, so I don't run into it. It's been there for at leat 2 years that I know of......

Nice report!


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## Frenchy (Oct 2, 2007)

Thanks a lot for the report, would be usefull to get a fix for the unmarked floater... anyone willing to share ?


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## Realtor (Oct 1, 2007)

I will have to get it from the boat, I have not transferred the coords to the computer for a while.


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## Matt09 (Jun 6, 2008)

Ive heard from a few different people coming in the shop talking about that big tank by the Petronious.


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## Ocean Man (Sep 27, 2007)

Thanks for taking me along Rich, I had a great time. Would have been nice if the YFT would have showed up, but I had a blast site fishing on the depth finder for the BFT.


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## user6993 (Feb 15, 2009)

Sounds like an honest post.The way it was told made me fell that I was there.You paid your dues this trip maybe next trip, will be the one with a box full of YF's.BF's are still alot of fun to catch for me.Thanks for the post.Gene


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## nextstep (Jun 27, 2008)

thanks rich for the trip. i always learn something everytime we go. already ate bft twice since the trip. yummm.:thumbup: yes yellow is better, but i have no problem with the bfts. great report from a great captain!!!


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