I need to start out here, lobster season so far has been a bust. Robin and I still have not found them. We have found some killer new structure and areas to fish and dive for them though…. But no oversized craw fish to speak of yet.
Also, honorable mention. this week was shark week, and they did a special about “Big Moe” which is a 17 foot hammerhead that joins us here in Bahia Honda and the 7 mile bridge during the tarpon run. I was skeptical but Paul said they know the film crew, and Big Moe is the real deal! Makes me feel real comfy diving around here!
Sunday, Robin and I went offshore with our neighbors Paul and Thuy. The plan was to run out offshore early, set up on the dolphin and tuna bite, and search for good bottom structure for our first deep drop shot. We had ballyhoo, Bonita and squid for bait.
We ran out to 750 feet of water and started seeing life. We slowed the boat down, put baits in the water, and pretty much immediately got into fish. The dolphin were under birds and they were hungry!
We also had 2 different runs on pretty big fish that dumped a ton of line off the reels, and both broke off. They hit my light tuna feathers on 40 pound leaders and both broke off at the hook. Who knows what they were, but judging by what we were catching they were most likely larger dolphin.
On to the deep dropping. Paul was driving the boat from the tower in search of the right structure. We stopped in 2 different areas, one had a pretty good rise in the bottom, and the second had a couple good rocky looking places.
We built the rigs we used on the bench at home. Basically three dropper loops with 10/0 circle hooks crimped on 200 pound mono and attached with heavy duty 3 way swivels. Each hook was tipped with a 7 inch glow worm. We used a 40 pound test loop for the weight (so we can break it off if it gets stuck). And on top of the rig we clipped on a deep drop strobe light. The saying is “no light no bite!”
Game on – the reel is pretty straight forward. It has 800 yards of 100 pound braid. It’s line counter is in meters, and the writing is in Japanese characters! So we all were doing the math … how do you convert feet to meters …. 850 feet … somewhere around 250 meters …
Just like grouper fishing in 60 feet of water. The braid really cuts the water, and Paul kept working the boat so that the line stayed as straight up and down as possible. I was manning the reel and kept the bait so you could see the weight bounce off the bottom in the trough of a wave. It gets hypnotic!
Big is life .. tap tap tap goes the rod tip, and I throw it in retrieve mode. If you hook up the rod bends in half. Like all grouper bites the fight is all about the first 60 seconds, when you hook it you have to keep it from getting back in it’s hole. We got a solid hookup, rod bent in half and we got that sucker off the bottom!
The electric made steady progress up the water column until we hit 50 meters to the surface. Then I felt a ton of kicking and boom things went the other direction – line going out. I had the drag cranked down as hard as I could but we could barely stop it and could not get it coming back up.
We learned allot about the reel, when it can’t make progress retrieving line the motor shuts off, and you have to turn it off and back on to restart it. Freaked me out a bit – I thought I was going to have to hand crank a sea monster up from the deep and that I burned up my new reel. Thank goodness ..
After a half hour of tug of war I finally started to get it coming back up. And at 20 meters below the boat I felt something let go and it came right up. We started seeing color and saw all we had left was a big head and with large shark following. Not sure the variety, but I know the sucker had teeth!
That would have been a big slob of a grouper! It was hooked perfect in the corner of the mouth, and we got it off the bottom! Two big wins, but we had to pay our taxes to the sea gods I guess!
We dropped 2 more times without success, got bites, but no hook ups. We came on back home and when we hit the reef it was drop dead gorgeous!
Cleaning table shot …
Paul and Thuy had a big family meet up that evening so they took the head and made fish head soup .. and threw big slabs of dolphin on the grill.
We were not that exotic, and had a simple blackened mahi dish with a nice salad and potatoes. But the night before Robin made a killer snapper dish – Caribbean style poached snapper in banana leaf … yum!
Living is pretty tough down here in the keys! Until next time …
Gorham Fishing Team 