# Overnight at the rigs



## Rubberducky (Oct 29, 2013)

My wife and I went out from Pensacola Saturday with two other couples for their first tuna trip. They had all done a lot of offshore fishing, but had not experienced going out to the oil rigs yet. We got some live bait at the buoys and headed out to the Petronius. There were three supply ships nearby, so we snuck into the the open side so everyone could have a chance to jig for blackfin and break the ice. We quickly had a nice one on, but lost half of him to a shark. The other ships moved in and we got to watch them lifting about 6 crew in a "basket" by crane. We decided to get out of the way and headed to the Marlin with two hours of daylight left. We trolled with no success until dark, and then started jigging. After a couple hours of no luck, we headed to the Ram Powell. The bite was decent and we landed about 10 whole blackfin, and plenty of blackfin parts for chunking later, and Kevin caught the first yellowfin at about 40 lbs. Everyone was tired, so they took a nap on the bean bags and we headed back to the Marlin to catch the morning bite. As soon as we got to the Marlin and dropped the jigs, my wife had one on and I got a call on the VHF. Another fishing vessel asked how we were doing. I told him we just got back from the Ram Powell and were doing ok, but only had 1 yellowfin. He informed me that he just left the Horn Mountain, and that he was done fishing as both his coolers were topped off with yellowfin, and they were still biting when he left. Just then, my wife lost her fish, which I took as a divine sign to head for Horn Mountain immediately. We got there around 4:30 am and started chunking. We hooked up on almost every drift, and one time we had two on at the same time, causing a whole lot of over/under dancing by Kevin and Stace, but they got both of them in the boat. Later, we lost two nice ones, but we went home with 6 yellowfins, the two biggest being around 85 lbs. I really want to thank the person who called us and gave us the heads up, you made a decent trip turn into the trip of a lifetime for us and our friends. It must have been "Lady Luck" that made you call, but whatever it was, we thank you.


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## PaulBoydenCustoms (Dec 3, 2008)

sounds like a good time, nice catch


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## Xiphius (Oct 10, 2007)

Nice fish and even better crew!


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## lobsterman (Sep 30, 2007)

Awesome fish awesome ride and awesome story. Thanks for sharing.


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## sniperpeeps (Mar 5, 2011)

Great report, awesome of that Captain to share intel with you!


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## In Hot Pursuit (Oct 29, 2013)

We saw you at the Ram Powell. We were in a 30' Pursuit. I wish we had been listening to the VHF! We stayed at the RP and loaded up on BF tuna heads and a few whole ones that weren't eaten on the way up. Realized it wasn't sharks when we witnessed a dolphin bite the tail off of a BF that was half out of the water on the way to the deck!! No YF's but we did get a nice hoo.


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## Rubberducky (Oct 29, 2013)

We did see a lot of dolphin, and I've seen them hit snapper and grouper, but it never occurred to me that they were hitting the blackfin. Makes sense now.


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## THONAS J. RYAN (Jan 9, 2013)

*Rubberducky*

That name wouldn't have anything to do with VT-4? Their nickname was the "RUBBER DUCKS"!!! Thank you Tom :thumbsup::thumbsup:


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## badonskybuccaneers (Aug 19, 2013)

Great story, thanks for sharing...


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## Rubberducky (Oct 29, 2013)

No, sorry. My wife and I haven't been able to pick a name for our boat for years. One marina we kept the boat at required a boat name, so she gave them "Rubberducky", hoping that it would embarrass me into picking a real name. The only problem was that Rubberducky stuck, and now it's grown on me to the point that it's the permanent name.


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## jcasey (Oct 12, 2007)

Nice Report, Catch, and Boat. Thanks for posting.


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## sail7seas (Oct 2, 2007)

Nice report and pics. Looks like a great trip. How were the seas out there? We were going to go Saturday but called it after seeing the seas were still high on the noaa buoy out there that morning.


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## Rubberducky (Oct 29, 2013)

We waited until 1:00 pm for the seas to calm down and it was around 2' all the way out. Around midnight it started getting choppy with small whitecaps, but by 4 am it was back down to 2' for the rest of the trip and ride home.


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## sharkwrangler (Sep 29, 2013)

I work on a rig in Mississippi Canyon Block 724 and see Yellowfin going air borne all the time. Great catch and nice story!!!


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