We are hoping the seas lay down enough to be able to run an gun for fins today. Only time will tell. Hit the SLI to great west wind conditions. We ran down to Bullshark to only mark baits but nothing chewing.

I have Cal and Brett aboard the AF today. We are just going to focus on catching some fins today and skip the BFT all together. Brett is a first timer aboard the AF so the pressure is on :grin

We decided to run out to Shrimpers in the darkness in hopes clearer waters would produce some baits in the lights. Marked a lot of baits so we decided to stay here till sun up. As the sunlight hit the surface we started to catch some small sardines.



I quickly decided that I needed to bury a sabiki hook into my finger below the barb :hairraiser Knowing the bait bite would be a short one before the hornbellys would show up I opted to keep the others on the bite while I deal with the hook.



Cal mentions that the best way to remove the hook is to press the eye of the hook down to the skin and hold pressure on it, take a piece of fishing lne and feed it through the space between the eye and where the hook enters the finger.

Now give it a quick yank and the hook will pop out. It all sounds good so before I did all that I submerged my finger into some ice water to numb it then we proceeded to do the operation and it worked flawlessly. Thank You Cal... :beer.

Now back to the baits. We picked up a few small sardines but no enough to make the run deep that we wanted. It is about 8am now so I made the call to make a run down to the Hobe Sound Wreck. We got there in about 10-15 minutes with the seas being flat out...

We pull up to the wreck with baits all over the surface and birds diving and fish busting on the baits. Looks like we will load up in short order. Drop in the sabikis and we brought up stringers of Hornbellies :banghead

We did manage a about 10 more small sardines and one big one. It is now past 8:30am opted to fish with what we had and make the run straight out from here. We spotted some birds working some BFT at the ledge in 300ft straight out from the Tower. Being that we didn't have a ton of baits we changed up plans (briefly) to explore this area.

I removed all my daisy chains this morning when I got to the ramp because our plan was to run an gun for fins. We quickly re-rigged the two spinners with the chains and broke out the wahoo lure and trolled around the area for about 45 minutes.



Here is Brett on a weedfish...



B.Wilmot (Bryan) gave us a shout out that he is gonna run out deep and we told him we will be right behind him. Bryan and I run & gun together so we can cover more ground and it has paid off in the past. No luck on the south ledge, we start our run out deep in search of some debris.

In 800ft we spot some nice scattered weeds with a few patches the size of a Honda car hood with bait under them. We dropped some chunks, Menhaden oil and milk. Brett gets hooked up immediately on a fin... :applause



I lose site of the patch and Cal points it out to me...



I woofed the first gaff shot and gave this fin a new fin doo... The second shot wasn't much better and the fin came off just above gunnel level. I swung again and caught him mid air before he hit the water. First fin on the day is in the box and high fives all around :beer



I give a shout out to B.Wilmot and he is in 1200ft on some weeds. We run back to the weed patch and I opted to drop in my new invention (See Tip of the Day)... I call it a Chum Flag :grin



I put out my Instant Downrigger in hopes of getting a fin down deep...



As I am re-rigging the pole that just boxed the fin, I proceeded to drive a piece of #9 fishing wire completely trough my thumb and out the other side :hairraiser

Now I am bleeding once again out both sides of the my thumb. After some Peroxide and other triage the bleeding stops and we get back to fishing... :banghead

No more fins here so we point the bow east and give B.Wilmot a shout out. He said he was heading in shallower to look for debris. We continue east and in 1300ft we spot the debris we were looking for. After last Monday losing that tree I dropped in my Chum Flag (See fishing Tip) so not to lose sight of this one. I didn't bother loading it with Mehaden oil and milk as it was already loaded up with fish.




We are covered up with banded rudder fish with fins, big fins down deep. I give B.Wilmot a shout out and gave him the coordinates to our local. Gave My Other Honey Pete and Vindawg a shout out as well but Pete was in 160ft on some fins and Vinny never responded back.

FISHHUNTR pulls up after hearing us on the radio. We call them over and they begin to hook up in short order...



Here is B.Wilmot doing the same...



A handful of other boats heard the shout out and made the 20+ mile run to join in on the fun. The more the marrier... :USA. Once the others showed up we run over and pull out my Chum Flag as I knew we wouldn't lose the debris with all these boats on it.

Not to many pictures while we were here and it was mayhem the first hour... Here is Brett on his first Bull Dolphin... Congrates Brett on the biggest fish of the day.



Cal had the large cow on that was swimming with Bretts big bull and as it came to the boat I swung the gaff and it caught the spring that I had strapped to the gaffs shaft and we lost that fish... Sorry Cal... :hairraiser I let Cal gaff the rest of the fins on this debris :grin

We ran out of small baits and opted to rig up some Ballyhoos on small Iland lures. We make a wide track around the boats and were about 100 yards from the debis when Bretts black and red Ilander gets nailed. The fish comes unglued and I yell over to dump the spool and Brett masterfully drops back the bait and fish on again... :applause

This fish isn't jumping so Cal and I are thinking Wahoo.. Sure enough. Cal yells out stripes and and he flings the hoo into the box. High fives all around... :beer :beer :beer



We give B.Wilmot a shout out on the color lure bait combo that the hoo hit on and then get back to the troll. He is drifting a large blue runner down deep and gets hooked up to a solid fin. Then as we drive by you could tell Bryan was not a happy camper as the crew member lost the large fin at the boat... I know that feeling very well Bryan as it is at the top of my memory bank. :grin We will boat the next one Bryan :USA

Nothing more doing on the troll we chunked up some more fins and caught two short ones and tagged a released them for the Dolphinfish Research Program. We kept seeing packs of larger fins but they didn't want anything to do with our chunk bait.

http://dolphinfishresearch.com/

Zach aboard the FISHHUNTR gets hooked up to a large fin on a small spinner as we see it sky out of the water in the distance. We run over to get some pics and a short video.







Congrats Zach on a solid fish on a small rod. You battled that fish for about a 1/2 hour. It was a great fight and we had fun watching you land that large fin... :applause

CLICK THE PIC BELOW TO SEE A SHORT VIDEO OF YOU FIGHTING THAT FIN ZACH







We decided we had better start running back in as we are 30+ miles NE of the SLI. When we left there was only one boat still there. Never did see them bring up a fish so I hope they load up now that we are all gone. We spotted a matt of weeds a few miles southwest of the tree and pull up to catch some baits with the sabiki rigs incase we see some debris on the 30 mile run back to the inlet.

As I am dropping the baits in the well, Cal puts one out and it is FISH on again. 7-8 gaffer fins are now under the boat. I decided I had better gaff one of these to get my mojo back and in the box he goes... We managed to box 1 more nice fin before they left.

We move on and spot some more weeds with a Triple Tail on it and quickly got him in the boat to take a measurement and it was a inch short...



We continued SW and stopped at the AJ spot to drop down a blue runner to put a hurtin on Brett.

No luck so we called it quits after a couple of drifts and head to the ramp. We arrived back in around 4-4:30 to make it the end of a great day on the water. We ran just over 80 miles today on the water and it was well worth the extra gas for sure. If your fishing on Sunday I highly recommend you run deep weather permitting.

Today’s Tally

6 Fins
2 Short fins tagged and released
1 Wahoo
1 Tripletail released short
3 new holes in my hand :grin
1 busted ego with a missed gaff shot an losing a 20 lb fin at the boat. Sorry again Cal :banghead
1 mended ego with a stucked gaff shot at the end of the day. :beer
38 gallons of well spent fuel :applause

I had a great time as always and as I said before, you’re always welcome aboard the AF anytime. :beer

How did everyone else make out today?

Tip of the day

This week I made a floatation device to help mark debris after losing the gold at the end of the rainbow last weekend. There was no doubt we could have limited out on fins and I am quite sure if we did some highspeed trolling around that log that another Wahoo or two could have ended up in the box as well. Because I already had a lot of the items noted below (except the Lowes list) this thing only cost me $10 to make. I estimate about $30 total (minus the tools) to make this complete.

Here was my shopping list from Lowes:

• Ύ” x 5ft CPVC pipe – SKU#23814 - $4.05
• (2) Ύ” End caps CPVC – SKU#23773 - .34 cents each
• Ύ” Male adapter CPVC – SKU#23766 - .36 cents
• Ύ” Adapter CPVC – SKU#23754 - .99 cents
• (2) 3/16” x 2” Stainless Steel Eyebolts – SKU#208035 - $1.52 each

Remaining items needed:
• Swim noodle
• (2) Wire ties
• Tournament flag of any type
• 400lb mono
• 400lb mono crimps
• Crimp tool
• Hacksaw
• 11/64” drill bit
• Sockets/wrenches to tighten Eyebolt nuts.
• 12-14 oz weight
• PVC Pipe glue & cleaner
• A swimming pool to test it out in is helpful

Assembly instructions
• Cut the following lengths of CPVC
o One 37” piece
o One 5” piece
• Cut the swim noodle to 30”
• Install the swim noodle onto the CPVC leaving 1” exposed at one end and 6” exposed on the other.
• Install end cap (unglued) on to the 6” exposed end.
• Glue on the male adapter to the 1” exposed end of the CPVC.
• Screw on the other adapter then glue on the 5”piece of CPVC to it.
• Drill a 11/64” hole into the end (center) of the remaining end cap that is not yet attached to anything.
• Place one nut on the Eyebolt as far on as it will go.
• Screw the Eyebolt into the hole and place another nut onto it and tighten.
• Glue on the end cap on the other end of the 5” piece of CPVC.
• Cut a 18” piece of 400lb mono and crimp it onto the Eyebolt.
• Attach the other end of the 400lb mono to a 14 oz. weight.
• Drill (4) .030 diameter holes, 90 degrees to each other approx. in the center of the 5” piece of CPVC.
o These holes are where water will enter and mix with the menhaden oil & milk and allow the menhaden oil & milk to seep back out into the water.
o Please note that some additional holes might be needed depending on the size of the holes you drilled.
• Drill (2) 11/64” holes into the 6” exposed end of the CPVC. One .375” below the end cap and one .375” above the top of the swim noodle.
• Install the remaining (2) Eyebolts into these holes.
• Attach the flag to the Eyebolts using the wire ties.

Once in the water, this thing will stick out of the water approx. 30” Add a few drops of Menhaden oil and milk and this should keep the fish around. Another plus is when you have all the Banded Rudderfish in the area, just maybe this will attract them so you can catch the fins :grin.

Hope this helps you stay on the debris and catch more fish.

Random pics on the day







CLICK THE PIC BELOW TO SEE SOME UNDERWATER VIDEO OF SOME BAITS