# 3/15 Offshore Report



## Trophyhusband (Nov 30, 2011)

After two months of trying, my friend, Tim, from New Orleans was finally able to line up a couple days off with good weather to come fishing with me. He's the one I made the "Laissez les bons temps rouler", "Tiger", and "Who Dat!" knife jigs for. We got an early start were several miles offshore catching squirrelfish just as it started to get daylight. We quickly put 10 nice 12 inchers in the livewell in case the jigs didn't work and continued south to the first wreck. Tim chose to start with "Laissez les bons temps rouler" and I went with a plane knife. I instantly hooked up and handed the rod to Tim, who has never fished AJ's before, but it was small. This repeated a few times until Tim finally hooked into one of his own. Again it was undersized, but I was happy that he not only caught one himself, but caught it on a novelty jig. I made a move to deeper water in search of bigger fish, but things really slowed down. I went to the live well to give live bait a shot, but apparently the drain tube had fallen out and all the fish were long dead. After taking time to catch more bait, we hit a few more wrecks. The squirrelfish got some attention, but no hook-ups. The only thing interested in the red porgies were sharks. I hooked into a few nice fish and handed the rod off to Tim, but they broke off.

There were a lot of weed patches, the water was clear, and there were even a few flying fish so we decided to troll for a while, but there was no interest in anything we had to offer so we went back to looking for AJ's. The sun was high up and the wind died off, perfect for dropping the Gopro.

Tim switched to the "Who Dat!" and soon hooked into a nice fish. I was thrilled and it completely made my day to see my friend pull in his first keeper amberjack. My day was made right then and there. He switched to "The Tiger" and then picked up a fat snapper. It doesn't get much better for a New Orleans boy.

Looking over the side I saw a school of fish just a little too deep to identify. I dropped the camera 30 feet down and decided to take my investigation a step further. I put on a mask on and got in the water. The school of fish was gone, but I saw something else swimming around down there. The video later confirmed it was a shark.

I still have a lot of work to do on the video, but I'll post it as soon as I get it done.


----------



## sniperpeeps (Mar 5, 2011)

Great report, nice work.


----------



## fishn4fun (May 11, 2008)

Fun day. congrats. Thanks for sharing


----------



## Captain Mickey O'Reilly (Dec 18, 2008)

Very cool!


----------



## Trophyhusband (Nov 30, 2011)

I've got the video pared down to just over 4 minutes. I want to get it under 3 minutes and then I can polish it up and post it. I found this cool screen shot as the camera was being pulled up.


----------



## MrFish (Aug 21, 2009)

Nice report.


----------



## ryanbr (Oct 10, 2007)

Mako?


----------



## CAPEHORN 31 (Jan 13, 2011)

I like the look of those jigs!! Nice fish and video. Do you make the jigs yourself?? I make and sell jigs called squidtail lures!! Nothin better than jiggin and catchin!!:thumbup:


----------



## Trophyhusband (Nov 30, 2011)

ryanbr said:


> Mako?


I don't know. I've been catching black tips lately, but I didn't get a good enough look at this one to ID it.


----------



## Trophyhusband (Nov 30, 2011)

CAPEHORN 31 said:


> I like the look of those jigs!! Nice fish and video. Do you make the jigs yourself?? I make and sell jigs called squidtail lures!! Nothin better than jiggin and catchin!!:thumbup:


Yeah, I made them. As cool as they are, the most effective ones are plain butter knives. We were fishing a 4 ounce knife in 170 feet of water with no problem. The fancier ones in the pictures took a hell of a lot longer to get to the bottom.


----------



## scupper (Mar 22, 2009)

Trophyhusband...Your pictures always turn out nice and I was wondering what settings you were using on your GoPro? Also, do you change still shots or video settings for above/below water shots? Thanks....


----------



## Island24 (May 12, 2008)

I agree... The pics and video are cool.


----------



## CAPEHORN 31 (Jan 13, 2011)

Pics are awesome! Im wondering about the settings alsol! Havent really had a chance to take ours out to try it!


----------



## fossil (Mar 2, 2008)

Great looking jigs and nice shots. I'll be looking forward to the video. I'd love to get a razorback jig like that - LOL


----------



## Trophyhusband (Nov 30, 2011)

scupper said:


> Trophyhusband...Your pictures always turn out nice and I was wondering what settings you were using on your GoPro? Also, do you change still shots or video settings for above/below water shots? Thanks....


Thank you.

For the gopro I shoot in 720 at 30 frames a second both above and under water. I would use 1080, but my computer takes too long to process it. All the underwater stills and some of the above water stills I take are just frame grabs from the video. Sometimes I'll go in and adjust the color, but in the pics in this thread I left alone. The pick of the fish coming out of the water at the beginning of this thread is a screen grab from video, but the picks of Tim holding fish are taken with my SLR. 

For the underwater video I use a flat lens on the gopro housing. I bought an extra housing so I didn't have the change out the lens all the time.


----------



## Trophyhusband (Nov 30, 2011)

fossil said:


> Great looking jigs and nice shots. I'll be looking forward to the video. I'd love to get a razorback jig like that - LOL


I posted the video in the general section. I guess it's not surprising that I've been getting a lot of requests for jigs. My wife thinks I should be selling them.I don't know if I want to do that. I think the novelty jigs make great gifts for guests on my boat. Tim graduated from LSU and also goes to most Saints home games. Now he has those jigs along with pics of fish he caught with them to hang on the wall. That really made his trip.


----------



## scupper (Mar 22, 2009)

Gotcha on the videos....what are you using on still stots above/below?

_"I posted the video in the general section"_ I didn't find it in General Discussion or Offshore General Q & A...did I overlook it?

Again...Thanks


----------



## CAPEHORN 31 (Jan 13, 2011)

Trophyhusband said:


> Thank you.
> 
> For the gopro I shoot in 720 at 30 frames a second both above and under water. I would use 1080, but my computer takes too long to process it. All the underwater stills and some of the above water stills I take are just frame grabs from the video. Sometimes I'll go in and adjust the color, but in the pics in this thread I left alone. The pick of the fish coming out of the water at the beginning of this thread is a screen grab from video, but the picks of Tim holding fish are taken with my SLR.
> 
> For the underwater video I use a flat lens on the gopro housing. I bought an extra housing so I didn't have the change out the lens all the time.


Thanks for the info. Is the flat lens housing you use made by gopro or is it made by another company?


----------



## Trophyhusband (Nov 30, 2011)

scupper said:


> Gotcha on the videos....what are you using on still stots above/below?
> 
> _"I posted the video in the general section"_ I didn't find it in General Discussion or Offshore General Q & A...did I overlook it?
> 
> Again...Thanks


I don't do stills underwater, I just take a frame from the video and turn it into a still. Above water I use my DSLR. Early in the day, late in the day, and if it's cloudy I set the ISO to 100 and use the aperture priority setting and open the aperture as much as possible (lowest number). In the middle of a sunny day I'll just set it to full auto.


----------



## Trophyhusband (Nov 30, 2011)

CAPEHORN 31 said:


> Thanks for the info. Is the flat lens housing you use made by gopro or is it made by another company?


To my knowledge, Gopro doesn't make a flat lens. The housing itself is made by gopro, it's just the lens that is made by someone else. There are several companies that make a flat lens and there are ways you can make your own as well. I went with the one from Mako because it was the cheapest. The down side is that there is a little vignetting. You can see this in the corners on the top and bottom of the left side of the screen.


----------

