# PELAGIC PIRATE over nighter report



## PELAGIC PIRATE (Oct 10, 2007)

<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">WOW ....what a awesome memorial day and weekend to fish on the Gulf of Mexico.

Left the Dock at 5 am sunday morning and headed out to a area close to the squiggles to try and catch a gropuper or two before heading off to troll. Landed a huge red grouper and a couple of nice scamp and continued on to the squiggles area. Got there and found bait every where but no bite and no debris anywhere. The roffs report we had ordered showed a nice eddy of water 50 or so more miles SSE of our position so we decide to troll out that way .

We picked up a few dolphin along the way and saw lots of smaller dolphin crash our spread. As we neared the area of the roffs we found the temp break but nothing in the way of a line or any weeds . We then decided to troll toward the weather bouy and see what we could find along the way. About 1 hour into the run we have a huge blue marlin crash the spread but didnt get hooked , and jumped away in the sun. We boxed the area to no avail but did pick up another nice dophin on the troll.

We keep our course to the bouy and another hour passes when we get a huge bite that starts dumping the 50 . As we started to clear the baits what looked like a small blue or a huge white was tail walking into the sun so we couldnt tell exatly what kind of bill fish it was but it was headed south in a hurry . We cleared all the baits and worked the fish for 20 minutes or so when it came up again and jumped off........DOH.

We carry on to the bouy which is now in site in the binos , when a school of dolphin crash our spread again , this time we get a triple cluster and land one of the 3 dolphin .........DOH. We put the chum out but we get no takers so we head on trolling finally arriving at the bouy at 5 PM. We make a few passes around the bouy which has grass scattered everywhere which made trolling it a nightmere. We decide to stop and throw poppers and chum and see what happens...........well with in 2 seconds we are covered up in Huge Dolphin and Monster triple tails. I had a wired jig and dropped it to see if i could hook a wahoo for my seasick buddy, and first drop i hook him up and pass of the rod. I grab another popper and make a cast at what looked like a 50 pound dolphin. The fish crashed on the popper but missed so i decide to try a hunk of ballyhoo which he passes up.

In the mean time My buddy has his fish close when all the sudden it comes to the surface and jumps 15ft in the air right next to the boat shaking the butterfly jig....... It wasnt the wahoo we expected but rather the largest dolphin i have ever seen in my life. This thing had to be 70 pounds , no joking this fish was for real a giant. In the mean time Reggie hooks the monster cow that was swiming with the bull on spin tackle with a whole squid.Reg has one on ,and I start bailing the smaller dolphin into the cooler one at a time. After a short fight reggies fish gets close enough for me to gaff and in goes the biggest cow i have ever seen , around 35 pounds. We were not able to land the triple tail as they swam off but there was one or two monsters hanging on the stern the whole time we were catching dolphin.

We decided to stay near the bouy and start dinner on our new grill and enjoy the night eatting ribs and chicken. Reggies decides to deep drop with his electric set up while i am getting dinner ready. After a couple of drops and nada , i asked to try a drop . I baited up and sent the rig down some 900 feet and went slack on the bottom and shook the slack a few times and bing , im on big time. After waiting what seemed forever , up pops the disco light and below my first ever monster yellowedge grouper in the 35 pound range. After that i dropped again and did the same thing and instantly hook up again . This time i get another yellow edge but half the size of the first. So now reggie wants his rod back so i go down below in the cabin for mine and discover we are "SINKING"

"HOLY SHIT , WE ARE SINKING" I get the boys to get the hand pump and start pumping fast, while i checked every opeing in our boat finally discovering we had a bad one way valve on the stern bildge pump allowing water to flow from the scupper staright into the bildge. Lucky when i rigged this set up , i put in a sea cock for just this situation and i was able to stop the flow. We then used the bildge pumps and hand pump to get all the water out and then checked ot see if the water would come back .

After that little scare we decided to stay out rather than come back in as we had stopped the issue, so back to fishing and eatting dinner. We continued to drop to the bottom catching wierd eels and small crazy looking sharks but no more gorupers. We also had squid every where behind the boat in the new under water lights. Eventually we all passed out and i woke up at 5 am with grey light showing. We were all very tired and instead of trolling around a bit , we headed back toward PC with the hopes of bottom fishing the John Walker area some 30 miles in shore. Once at the ridge we dropped and jigged and caught a bunch of nice scamps and some huge red snappers.

We continued in and stopped one more time on a spot that holds big jacks and man were they home. I caught 15 or so on butterfly jigs in the 25 to 50 pound class and wrecked my back for sure on spin tackle. I also had a huge wahoo take my butterfly jig 20 feet from the boat only to loose it as i had no wire. At this point we decided to call it a trip and head in as i had to drive back to Atlanta that same night. We get back to the marina and unload into the carts, wheel up to where we parked both cars only to find my buddys car stolen ( brand new 2010 yukon ) . We asked around the marina to see if maybe it was towed , then called the Sheriff and made the report of a stolen car.............which has yet to be located.

I really feel bad for my buddy as he was sick for all but 1 minute of the trip coming out both ends and then to get back to a stolen car just tops the cake.

Total Tally:

15 dolphin from 15-35 pounds

3 lost wahoo

2 lost billfish

12 assorted groupers from 10-35 pounds

1- 20 pound kingfish

3 -40-50 pound amberjacks

We seemed to have lost and botched more fish than we caught , and i will say that despite seeing thousands of dolphin fish we just could get them to bite and or stay on the hook. Good sign of life in any case and bait every where. Never really saw any boats near us , had the whole place all alone except for the company of a pod of sperm whales.

Sorry but no pictures from this trip as we just didnt bother taking any this time.


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## FL_Panhandler (Oct 9, 2007)

Nice report, good to see you getting back out there. I've got a suggestion for you (for everybody, really): get a bilge high water alarm for every compartment. It will tell you when the problem is still on the small side.


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## Realtor (Oct 1, 2007)

Whew, is the date dd/mm/yyyy or mm/dd/yyyy? Where is the wx bouy?

Great report, cept the sinking part


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## brnbser (Oct 1, 2007)

good report and still sounds like a mess of fish despite all the troubles and misses.........

it's d/m/y Jim.


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## Tuna Man (Oct 2, 2007)

With all the mishaps it sounds like you still had a very nice trip.


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