# Sat Night Petronius, Marlin & Discovery Deep Seas



## rustybucket (Aug 18, 2011)

Well, got the boat T'd up for our first overnight Rig trip and pulled out of the marina Sat afternoon around 2pm. My wife has been hesitant to to let our son, 10yrs old, do this trip with us. So just she and I went out with hopes of getting her to give the thumbs up on my first mate joining in next trip.

Got to Petronius Sat evening and trolled around a few nice rips and weedlines with nothing to show, lots of scattered grass along with the weedline so keeping the lures clean was a full time job (especially without my first mate!!). The water was pretty dirty and not many fliers present.

As dusk approaches we troll our way into Petronius with plans to tie up for the night... We trolled one circle around it and picked up a Rainbow Runner and a small 1/2 a blackfin. Quite a bit of bait busting top as well, looking REAL fishy. Then Petronius comes over the radio asking all boats to leave the area and give a 5mi berth to them as they are about to commence dive operations that are going to last all night long 

Well, the wife gives me a look like WTH are we going to do now??? 

I say, no biggie we will just hit Marlin and/or Ram Powell. We cruise over to Marlin and the water is NASTY and no bait/fish in sight. By now it is DARK.... No sign of fish at Marlin and the water is nasty....

Wife crashes on the bean bag, says I better figure out something in an hour or we are going back to the dock 

I pull out my iPad and open the Hiltons App... Luckily I had saved several maps before I left the house sat morn... I pull up the Chlorophyl chart and see there is a line of blue water not far southeast of where we were. Wife still asleep, I turn the boat southeast, toward double nipple, and head for the good water.

As we are cruising I see a BIG rig in the distance. I'm looking on my charts and can't locate it... I see Discovery Deep Seas on my chart, in the same general direction, but further.

Water was calm, weather was perfect.... I pointed the bow at the rig, not knowing what exactly I was heading toward, but knowing that it should be in or near cleaner water. After about 15mi we arrive and it is the Discovery Deep Seas (must have moved since chart update?)

There were several boats at the rig so we just joined in the drift routine. I'm throwing jigs, I've got a live bait out the back... and nada...

Finally I hear some chatter on the radio about the blackfin being at 150'. I'm only fishing down to 100+/-. Drop the jig down to about 200' and after a few cranks I'm hooked up!! The commotion wakes the wife up, we land the fish and a couple drops later I'm hooked up again. I let her have this one!! Her first blackfin!



It's after midnight, my arms and back are already given out from jigging. I'm confident we could have loaded the boat with blackfin. But the purpose of this trip was to explore and learn, not load the boat.

So, we drop a sword line in the water and a couple of live baits and drift. We took turns sleeping, although I will say that she got WAY more turns than me! 

About an hour before daylight I'm watching the weather radar and storms are starting to pop up everywhere. I'm watching the path to Pensacola slowly close up.... One of the goals of this trip was the morning yellowfin bite.... looking at the radar I made the decision to call it and start heading home to try and beat the storms out. Well, we made it back safely without a drop of rain, downside is that we could have stayed as the storms slowly died out. Either way I feel that I made the safe call, the last place I needed my wife to be is in a storm offshore when I'm trying to get her to feel more comfortable about this.

We ended up about 100 miles offshore at our furthest point. We burned 119gals of gas total. Before our next trip I have to figure out a better ice solution, my fish boxes don't hold ice well at all, don't think they are insulated well. We had enough ice for this trip, but if we had loaded the boat with tuna I think we would have run out. I had a cooler of ice blocks strapped to the swim platform on this trip and that is the only ice we had left when we got back to the dock.

We ran 3600rpms @ 26knts out to the rigs and 3200rpms @ 23knts on the way back, fuel burn on the way back was considerably less. I will run 3200 out and back next time. 


Leaving the Marina!


Petronius


Discovery Deep Seas




Moonlight view from the Bean Bag!


It was CALM, pretty much 0 waves from about 1am-7am. Couldn't ask for more beautiful weather for this trip!


The ride back to the dock!


Sushi Tonight!!!


Thanks to everyone who posts here, I have learned a lot just by reading through reports and posts and will continue to learn!! Was awesome watching the schools of squid circle the underwater lights at night!! Got to watch one of them ink as a smaller fish tried to nip it!


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## MSViking (Oct 11, 2007)

Very nice report, thanks for the details and the pictures. You are now solidly on the learning curve relative to rig fishing. I am glad it you were able to find another rig. Reality is rigs run you off about 25% of the time or so, so always good to have a backup plan. You mentioned tying off to Petronius, in my experience they do not allow it, but maybe the situation has changed. We always take a sea anchor and just drift.

Next time you go you will latch into a 100lb + YFT and you will surely be hooked!


Robert


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## bcahn (Jan 10, 2013)

Last time I was at the P, we couldn't tie off either. Awesome pics and great report, I'm planning my next rig run first of next month.


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## Realtor (Oct 1, 2007)

NICE report, I was wondering what was going on out there.... you were a lot lighter on the return trip and better fuel burn. Good report and pics! Thanks.


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## floorman1 (Jan 10, 2012)

Nice report and pics sounds like a awesome trip what boat do you have which engines.


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## 301bLLC (Nov 23, 2013)

Great report and pics...THANKS!


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## rustybucket (Aug 18, 2011)

floorman1 said:


> Nice report and pics sounds like a awesome trip what boat do you have which engines.


246 Open Shamrock, single inboard. 5.7L SeaMaxx.


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## Webber67 (Jul 5, 2013)

Curious how the current was at Deep Seas? I'm headed to Horn Mtn. tomorrow and the charts have showed the current just past that area strong. Looks like you guys had a smooth trip. Nice!!!


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## jcasey (Oct 12, 2007)

That was an awesome read and report. thank you.


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## rustybucket (Aug 18, 2011)

Webber67 said:


> Curious how the current was at Deep Seas? I'm headed to Horn Mtn. tomorrow and the charts have showed the current just past that area strong. Looks like you guys had a smooth trip. Nice!!!


Virtually no current. It might have been 1-2knt south or southeast. My sword line was virtually straight down with only 2lbs of lead. I probably could have just had 8oz on it and it would have stayed down. My live baits were running circles around the boat. Ended up having to put them on balloons to keep them away from the boat.


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## oysterman (Jan 23, 2012)

edit


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## rustybucket (Aug 18, 2011)

oysterman said:


> Outstanding...I can see your little deckhand and you taking a many adventure trips together.


I'll tell ya what... I didn't realize what all he did, until he wasn't there! :thumbup:. The pliers and knifes were never in the right spot! Instead of him handing me something when I needed it, I had to stop down and go find it 

Also, took twice as long to get the spread out and maintaining it was a FULL TIME job, especially with the grass. Usually we split duties on it.

Of course, one of his favorite pastimes is creating hellashious knots, tangles and backlashes so there weren't near as many of those


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## Webber67 (Jul 5, 2013)

rustybucket said:


> Virtually no current. It might have been 1-2knt south or southeast. My sword line was virtually straight down with only 2lbs of lead. I probably could have just had 8oz on it and it would have stayed down. My live baits were running circles around the boat. Ended up having to put them on balloons to keep them away from the boat.


Good to know. Thank you for the reply.


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## grey ghost (Jul 24, 2011)

great report & pics! I tell ya rite now, you better take care of that wifey, I guess ya no u gotta goodun! LOl Glad the weather didnt get ya. I have drift anchor for my 26 cc, I made it, well worth getting one!


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## KBGAub (Aug 19, 2012)

Great post and nice trip. I am doing the same with my wife now and my oldest is only 4! Gotta start early!


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