On Saturday, April 6th, we had an 8hr split trip. Capt. Chad had the helm and the crew was in our 37ft Cape Horn. The forecast was calling for beautiful and slick, but it was all a big lie. The wind was blowing and the ocean was pretty rough, swells were fairly tight, and it was white capping pretty steady, but fishable, especially in a 37ft boat. Oh well, we are used to the weather forecast being completely off, right? We started jigging some live bait (cigar minnows and sardines). While we were jigging bait, the trolling motor took dump on me so we had to go old school and use the anchor for the rest of the day. It was a bad day for that with the wind and current going two different directions, but hey, we are used to that too, right? If it were easy, everybody would be doing it. We baited up and went offshore over 20 miles. We were fishing some wrecks and live bottom and “picking” as we call it in the charter business. That’s where we are steading picking up fish, but we aren’t tearing them up by any means. I kept moving from spot to spot, not finding much for volume. Between the current ripping in one direction, the wind honking in another direction, and the anchor dragging, keeping the boat on anchor over the spot was a challenge. It definitely let me see how valuable the trolling motor is for efficiency and production. But, the crew we had, worked hard and kept putting fish on the boat. Later in the day, we had a flat line go off. The “flat line” is a free swimming live bait on a standard kingfish rig. The drag started screaming and before we knew it, we had a 16lb mahi in the boat! A little while later, Joe was working the metal jig when it got crushed. With how hard the fish was pulling, he was calling it an amberjack. While Joe was fighting his “amberjack” on the metal jig, the flat line goes off again, and it almost dumps the reel. At one point, I thought it was a shark because of how steady it was. As I thumbed the spool to break it off, it felt lighter than a shark, so I backed off and let John fight it. A short while later, Joe got his fish to the boat. We were all surprised to see a blackfin tuna. Once I saw that, I knew what John had. John finally got his fish to the boat, and Capt. Ty gaffed our second blackfin of the day. All in all, a tough day turned phenomenal in the blink of an eye and we ended with a great variety! Come on and go with us! 904-362-0609
