# Finally!!



## panhandlephinsphan (Aug 25, 2008)

300hp Yamaha: $25k
Bags of lures: $more than i want my wife to see...
Rods and reels: $plead the fifth
Radar: $2k
Bottle of bourbon: $200
ER trip: $Waiting on bill
Getting the first billfish ever to our boat and the first billfish for Joeey in his lifeRICELESS!!

Quote of the trip: Al to Joeey when Joeey realized it was a two speed reel and dropped it down into low: Like a 2 dollar whore on nickel Sunday!!

Headed out of NAS Sunday am around 4:30. Went to nipple, lines in at sun up.
Green water. Turned blue as we headed a bit further south.

TUrned toward elbow and decided to run it up into the shallows and see if anyone was hungry on the edge. Had what we think was a white pick up the menu and give it a hard look, but he did not order. 

Headed towards spur. Water beautiful. But no weed lines, no grass mats, VERY little weed anywhere, very little flying fish (the ones we saw were HUGE though)

We were having a great day out on the water for our first trip out for the year. Just no fish. Swapped out lures at spur as we set the autopilot north towards home but still had a few hours of trolling on the way in. I gave Brandon a choice of three lures for the long line- he picked this crazy pink mold raft so we hook it up behind a bird and send it out for battle.

WIthin an hour BAM!!! 80 wide long line makes that beautiful sound that we have missed these past cold months! 11 minutes later we’ve got ole ****** next to the boat- we thought it was a tuna at first or a hoo- no aerial show. Seemed to just head down. When Al was getting ready to gaff he looks up with a grin and tells me he cannot gaff this one- of course i ask why the heck not And as I look over the gun whale I see this beautiful bill!!

Great day. 

That night I was home in the driveway climbing up to the tower with a water hose and missed what I was grabbing for and fell off the boat and onto the concrete driveway. It was a good thing I broke my fall with my face. Thanks to the firs responders and ER docs at Sacred heart- EVERYONE was wonderful and I appreciate what all of you do. 

Hope you like the video. 

WIll try all over again this coming weekend. Now we need ole blue!!

Panhandlephinsphan

Davidhttp://gopro.com/v/6G5dKzv2dyMK


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## cody&ryand (Oct 3, 2007)

Awesome report/story accept the face part haha


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## jgraham154 (Jul 15, 2008)

Congrats


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## bcahn (Jan 10, 2013)

Great report capt, hope he heel quickly!


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## Realtor (Oct 1, 2007)

dang, I can only play the first 5 seconds of the video? get well soon.


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## panhandlephinsphan (Aug 25, 2008)

Two pics- not sure why video not working for everyone. Let me know if that is still the case.


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## Solace (Apr 23, 2009)

Nice fish..Ouch face!


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## JVT (Jun 5, 2009)

Beautiful fish. 

We caught the first blue off my boat a couple of years ago and it never jumped...but it was quite large. Caught a white last summer and it put on quite a show.


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## Fish4jesus (Aug 2, 2016)

Congrats, how far did you run out? I see the spot in the video,, but what do you have in case of emergency? Reason i ask is at some point I wanna take that adventure in my cape.


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## WhyMe (Apr 21, 2013)

Just looked at the report. Damn that's great. Kewl clip. 
Whyme


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## how2fish (Jan 21, 2008)

Congrats ! The memory of the first bill will stay around longer than the memory of the pain! Great job ! :notworthy:


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## panhandlephinsphan (Aug 25, 2008)

Fish4jesus said:


> Congrats, how far did you run out? I see the spot in the video,, but what do you have in case of emergency? Reason i ask is at some point I wanna take that adventure in my cape.


We were just north of the spur so a little less than 60 miles at the catch area.

We have a flare kit, flare gun kit, two SPOT devices, mounted VHF and hand held radio, spare prop and all associated things to change a prop, battery jump box in case for some reason we lose both batteries, GPS dash mounted, GPS on app on my iPad and phone (yes, it works out of cell range- Navionics app), auto pilot, radar, two bilge pumps, spare hoses/clamps, oh, and most important: we travel with at least twice the amount of beer we should need just in case we break down and have to wait on Tow Boat. 

We also send a float plan to some friends with boats and try to know others going out if possible.

I hope that helps.

It is not 100% but we have covered a lot of bases. Me and my crew understand the boat and are comfortable with what we do.


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