triumphrick
Lieutenant Commander
- Joined
- Jun 26, 2008
- Messages
- 1,737
Wow..is this an offshore slam or what?? Friends from Canada came back from Mickey Mouse land and Dave was ready to head out without the girls. Loaded he and my neighbor Paul up and headed to the Hudson ramp at 5:30 yesterday morning. We launched right after a squall passed. In the distance were thunderstorms and nasty looking weather, but figured we would just play it by ear and see how far we could go.
First stop was the reef in 18' where we loaded up and filled the baitwell. Threw some extras in the fishbox on ice. The seas were solid 2' - 3' so the going was slow, but we still made it to 60'. Travis (grouppimp) had been with us before and called this area the "ledges". As we neared our spot we saw good bottom and stopped, but after an hour or so we moved. Just got lots of short reds, although we did get a couple sharks.
The next spot we had to anchor twice to hit it...small, but man was it alive. The first legal gag came in the boat followed shortly by a legal red! Then all hell broke loose as a school of AJ's wouldn't let anything get by them. None were legal..all were 24" - 26" but even on our grouper rigs they gave a good tug. One also picked up our flatline on lighter spinning gear and provided a good fight. From then on most every bait dropped down was picked up by big fish. We were rocked at least eight to ten times..lost all but one of them after waiting him out.
The next big surprise were the two cobias. Mine convinced me I had a shark on, but after the first run to the top I made it out to be a cobia. Solid 30# fish and a great fight. Paul's was caught shortly after and dropped off not long into the fight. Several legal gags later and it was time to head in..
Boy, am I dragging butt! All three of us had nice solid fish on all day long. The AJ's for their size can wear you down! Big fish that we tried to muscle off the bottom contributed to the need for extra Ben-Gay I slathered on.
Thanks to Travis for another great spot to fish! I owe you another trip!!
Here's a few pics of some bloddy decks! http://s314.photobucket.com/albums/ll42 ... 2005%2027/
First stop was the reef in 18' where we loaded up and filled the baitwell. Threw some extras in the fishbox on ice. The seas were solid 2' - 3' so the going was slow, but we still made it to 60'. Travis (grouppimp) had been with us before and called this area the "ledges". As we neared our spot we saw good bottom and stopped, but after an hour or so we moved. Just got lots of short reds, although we did get a couple sharks.
The next spot we had to anchor twice to hit it...small, but man was it alive. The first legal gag came in the boat followed shortly by a legal red! Then all hell broke loose as a school of AJ's wouldn't let anything get by them. None were legal..all were 24" - 26" but even on our grouper rigs they gave a good tug. One also picked up our flatline on lighter spinning gear and provided a good fight. From then on most every bait dropped down was picked up by big fish. We were rocked at least eight to ten times..lost all but one of them after waiting him out.
The next big surprise were the two cobias. Mine convinced me I had a shark on, but after the first run to the top I made it out to be a cobia. Solid 30# fish and a great fight. Paul's was caught shortly after and dropped off not long into the fight. Several legal gags later and it was time to head in..
Boy, am I dragging butt! All three of us had nice solid fish on all day long. The AJ's for their size can wear you down! Big fish that we tried to muscle off the bottom contributed to the need for extra Ben-Gay I slathered on.
Thanks to Travis for another great spot to fish! I owe you another trip!!
Here's a few pics of some bloddy decks! http://s314.photobucket.com/albums/ll42 ... 2005%2027/