# Crazy day in the Gulf



## JD7.62

**Caution - EXTREMELY long read but worth it!!**

Today was the day. It was only the second time since snapper season started that I could fish alone. Ive been busy with charters or with friends/family in town since June 1st and Ive only fished once alone since then. Of course the weather has kept me off the water more then I wanted too!

The goal was tarpon. I decided to stay closer to home instead of where the hot tarpon bite is right now but Ive been hearing good reports so I figured Id give it a shot.

I hit the beach a little before 7. NW wind had the gulf smooth but some good 1.5-2ft big slow rollers where coming through. Given their slow speed and distance apart launching was a breeze.

The surf zone was like chocolate milk but once beyond the sandbars it cleaned up a bit. Not great but not bad either.

I didnt bring frozen bait, just five king rigs, some circle hooks for tarpon and knocker rigs for reef fish and two small jointed vertical jigs for bobos or blackfin just in case. Oh and a couple of sabiki rigs of course.

Bait was EVERYWHERE but just not hungry. It was very frustrating having thousands and thousands of cigs and threadfin and spanish sardines circling the yak but not eating. But, I was slowly picking away at bait, most were snagged actually.

While catching bait I kept my eye out for tarpon. I never saw one roll in about an hour so I decided to head deep, hit some spots I havnt fished in awhile in hopes of finding a grouper or stray cobia. I still didnt have enough bait to make the trip worth it so I topped off the tube with some nice sized sand perch.

I get out about a mile with nothing to show for it and the Gulf seems dead. The wind has died down to nothing, the gulf was just some small 1-2ft glassy rollers at this point.

Finally I get some action in about 65ft, two short runs and no hook up. I rebait and as Im letting the line out fish on! This fish is smoking my reel! After 6 minutes I catch a glimpse, its by far my best king of the season. A minute or so later I have a nice black fin sky under 10 feet from the yak! I look at my graph and see a bait pod about 40ft down with perfect squiggles darting in and out!

I put the rod with the king on in the rod holder, drop the little jig, once I see it has hit the bait ball I start jigging and after the first jerk fish on!! Double hook up!!

It feels tunaish and after seeing the BFT not ten seconds before my hopes are high! However I still have the king in the water with about 30ft of line out and the fish on the jig is now running to it!! I grab the spool to put the breaks on before I have a huge mess and the line goes limp! Hook pulled! I reel up, nope two out of the three hooks on the treble broke! 

Now back to the king, I get him up and pull him in the yak just in time to see black fin sky about 20 yards away again. I throw the jig with just one hook in that direction and start skipping it across the surface. BOOM! Fish on! But this fish isnt pulling nearly as hard as the first and the SSV 55000 with 40lb Suffix 832 braid makes quick work of a bobo. Boo.

Now back to the king, I get him unhooked, take a pic for KW and release.

I change jigs, rebait and circle back but no further action.

As Im heading to my grouper spot I come up on a good school of bobos. I figure what the heck, I will make a detour and get some KW points and maybe find those BFT again.

I get a couple but as Im unhooking the second one, I look over the side and see a few small cobia, then I see a GIANT shark. Easy the biggest shark Ive seen other then the whale shark. Its about 8ft but MASSIVE. Much larger then the 8ft Tigers and roughly 8ft hammers Ive seen. It had the body of a bull with huge "shoulders" but a light grey in color. Dusky?

With the shark were several more cobia with at least three in the 20-30lb range! As luck would have it, Im struggling trying to get the hook out of the bobo. I do and make a throw. The little ones are all over the jig but I dont want them, I want the keepers! I burn the jig back in and make a couple more throws but the little ones were just too aggressive and I couldnt get to the big ones before the shark and the cobia all swam out of sight.

Rats!

I move on to the reef, drop a sand perch on the knocker rig and quickly pulled up a 20" ARS with a big nurse shark following it up. She was beautiful but luckily didnt eat the snapper.

As Im baiting up the second SP to redrop I see a nice rip with tons of action on it a bit further south.

I make a beeline over there and see a sail free jumping! I put out a live spanish sardine on a naked king rig and start working the rip.

Bobos are every where with the occasional BFT as well. Im throwing the jig at them but I keep hooking bobos. Meanwhile I ended up getting two sharks on the trolled live baits. Oh, I also picked up a decent spanish that luckily didnt cut my jig off.

I did have a hit on a spanish sardine that squished the bait but left no teeth marks, unfortunately no hook up...hmm..

The dang sharks cost me two king rings and I got another stuck in my shorts so now Im down to my last two king rigs. 

By now the wind has picked up out of the SW and the rip started getting hard to see with the white caps and I think just disappeared actually.

By now Im nearly four miles offshore (I rarely go further then two) so I start to head in. 

About 3 miles from the beach I notice on my sonar another bait ball getting smashed by something big about 40ft down. Heck yeah! So I drop my jig down, again fish on after one jerk of the rod tip! Holy COW this fish is SMOKING my reel!

About 30 seconds BOTH of my trolled baits which were still in the water get slammed! WTF?! A TRIPLE HOOK UP!! 

Then about a minute later FIVE, yes FIVE of the same species of shark that I saw earlier show up and just like the first they are all huge! This time they bring DOZENS of cobia with at least a dozen fish in the 20-30# range. As much as I wanted to throw another bait out and get one of the cobia I knew I couldnt manage a quadruple hook up!!

Meanwhile I see that my right trolled bait is a non keeper cobia so Im not worrying too much about it. The fish on the jig is still burning up my reel but the left trolled bait is pulling much harder then the little cobia but no where near as fast as the fish on the jig. I decide that this may be a keeper cobia so I put the fish on the jig in my rod holder and start fighting the left trolled bait. I get the fish insight in about 3 minutes and its a damn bull red about 35"! WTF?! He ate a king rig in 75ft of water! Anyhow once I get him up his airbladder keeps him from swimming back down but he could breath fine so I decided to leave him in the water and focus more on the fish on the jig.

This fish is a monster, by now Im down to the third ring on my SSV. 

30 minutes goes by, the red is still yak side, the little cobia is still hooked up and the fish on the jig is still kicking my ass!

Meanwhile the five sharks and all of the cobia keep swimming around me! 

About 35 minutes in the little cobia tangles up with the red. I put the fish on the jig in the rod holder and attempt to untangle them but I only manage to now to get the fish on the jig tangled with the red and the cobia! The braid on the fish on the jig cuts the mono the cobia was on and I manage to untangle him from the red.

Back to fighting this fish. After about 50 minutes I finally get my first glimpse of this fish that has tested me for nearly an hour now. Its an absolutely monster of a Jack Crevalle. Im pretty damn bummed, I was hoping it was a BFT but by then I knew it didnt feel like a BFT, I was just hoping it was a foul hooked BFT or something.

I still cant get this jack close to the boat, every time I do hed run off 50 yards of line. Im putting lots and lots of pressure on this fish too, I wasnt babying it!

Meanwhile the sharks and cobia are STILL around me. The big sharks never got less than 15ft from me so I figured my red was safe, but I was wrong. Finally one of the giant sharks builds up some courage and grabs the red not three feet from my yak! Ok, thats a bummer but at least I will be able to reel in my line and fight this jack right? Wrong! Somehow the shark managed to hook the king rig and takes off! So, thats the fourth fish hooked up in this epic adventure!

Oh and did I mention that by now its getting pretty sloppy out there?!

So, now that my Battle 5000 is getting spooled with nearly $40 worth of line I decide to grab the spool on the jack and put some serious heat on this fish so I can get him up so I can stop the shark from spooling me.

After about 10 seconds I break the jack off, exactly 61 minutes after hooking him up! 

I reel up the line, set the rod down and try to grab the rod the shark is on. My right arm is nothing but a noodle at this point, but by the time I grab the rod the shark has broken the leader. Thus, ending over an hour of a rather epic, though disappointing adventure!

Im left with no jigs and no king rigs now and Im still over two miles from the beach. I make the the rest of the trip back with out putting a bait in the water. I was beat!

Yeah yeah I know, where was the GoPro? I didnt have it with me but man I wish I did! It was the craziest thing ever, but in the end I didnt manage catching crap after all of that which was rather disappointing, however all of the fish were trash fish so it could have been worse, I could have lost a tuna or keeper cobia which would have REALLY made me mad!!


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## fishheadspin

Geez...I'm worn out just from reading it!!!


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## Chris V

Holy shit Jason, that was the longest damn report I've ever read! A good one though!

Could've been duskys, but they are usually fairly lanky in comparison with a bull shark of the same length. The inter dorsal ridge between the two dorsal fins is the best giveaway


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## FishJunky

That was a crazy day!


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## submariner

interesting read sounds like an adventure Where are you putting in at


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## jmunoz

No fish but one hell of a fish story lol. Great report man


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## J.Roberts

Sounds like a fun day on the water. Thanks for the Report Capt.


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## 2RC's II

I'm going to bed. Dang that made me tired.


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## chaps

Wow, what a read. I've been known to manage a few poles at once but good grief, I feel exhausted now!!!! I love to know how big the jack measured. Too bad about the blackfins. What type of jig were you dropping down for them?


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## Rightbrained

Damn JD , sounds like you needed a good nap when you got home.


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## Realtor

whew


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## lowprofile

sounds incredible! wish i was there to hook up on one of those sharks!

did they look like this?


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## chad403

*Hmm*

I stopped reading at BFT.


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## JD7.62

lowprofile said:


> sounds incredible! wish i was there to hook up on one of those sharks!
> 
> did they look like this?


If I had to put money on it, I would say that is what they were. They had a very short head on them and about that size and color.


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## JD7.62

chad403 said:


> I stopped reading at BFT.


BFT = Black fin tuna, not blue fin tuna!


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## roadx

fishheadspin said:


> geez...i'm worn out just from reading it!!!


lol :d


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## Ginzu

At least you got on the water! Lol. Sounds like a tough trip. Should have brought your good luck charm!


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## froglegs

That sounds like a blast. 

What kind of jigs are you using to target BFT?


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## jbs_bama

Sounds like you had your hands full with all the hook ups at once. That's awesome having that many fish on at once. Good story.


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## King Mike

Great report. Thanks


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## Telum Pisces

Get I get the cliff notes version. Haha


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## Dang Dang

Nice report. With all that fighting I bet you can tie your shoes now w/o bending over. Haha wtg


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## PCfisher66

What a story, nice report!


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## Ivarie

The entire time I'm reading I'm thinking, don't let this be an internet "troll" job. Glad it wasn't, that's an epic day of fishing to say the least. Bummer on not knocking a sail, big cobia or BFT off the list that day.


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## dakrat

definitely the most suspenseful fishing story in PFF. thanks for sharing


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## Yellowrivermudder

Man I wish I could have a day with that many hook ups! I'll be trying my yakin luck this weekend. The weather is supposed to be great! Great report JD, and may your next trip yield keepers! Tight lines!!! YRM


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## Magic Mike

Awesome report. Thanks for sharing!


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## Jason

Den, I'm going to bed...wore out from reading it!!!! Great day brother!


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## MrPhoShiz

i need a drink and a cigarette


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## Caddy Yakker

Well dang man thats crazy! I guess I need to get on the water.
Great report!


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## tkh329

I think my heart rate went up just reading that story!


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## GatorBane

It blows my mind how you remember all of that with such precise clarity. Excellent read. I enjoyed it thoroughly.


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## devinsroller

WOW JD you always have an exciting time and something crazy going on when you go out. That is why I look for your post. 

I need to man up and go out with you some time.


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## fishnhuntguy

*IS that safe?*

This might be a stupid question but I'm gonna ask. Is it safe to be out there in a kayak with that wildlife around you? Would they bother a kayaker? I have never heard of it but maybe it's because he never lived to tell? How would one fend them off? Sidearm?


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## need2fish

great read JD....crazy


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## Magic Mike

fishnhuntguy said:


> This might be a stupid question but I'm gonna ask. Is it safe to be out there in a kayak with that wildlife around you? Would they bother a kayaker? I have never heard of it but maybe it's because he never lived to tell? How would one fend them off? Sidearm?


Think you've watched Jaws too many times . I like to think most fisherman would marvel at the beauty, not cower in fear.


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## jasoncooperpcola

I would probably lower a hunk of fish down on wire leader and be ready to hang on....


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