Friday, March 13, 2009

Haven't Posted Much Lately.....

....Cause there hasn't been much worth posting. We haven't fished in a week. We'll finally get back in the boat tomorrow, but we're looking at only about 10-12 total days for this month prior to leaving for the Bahamas.

Most of what we've been doing this week is cleaning and organizing the boat in preparation for the trip. We did some fishing ourselves as well on the gulf side in this skiff for Spanish Mackerel and Ballyhoo, which we freeze and take with us to use as baits for Blue Marlin.

We're giving ourselves a bit of a break right now to watch some of the college basketball conference tournaments. Go Bucky.

I'm thinking about getting myself one of the pocket sized waterproof cameras in the next few days so I can keep it in my pocket and have it at the ready for some quick photos, especially in the Bahamas. Hopefully that'll bring some life back to the blog.

Anywho, looking forward to getting back on the water tomorrow. Fishing has been reported to slowly be improving as the weather has been warm for about a week now, and hopefully it'll hold that way and fishing will be even better next week.

Looking forward to seeing Little Ricky, his bride, and Craig this week as well.


Be well, everybody.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

The Cloud Nine....

...washed, waxed, new bottom paint and clean wheels. That's a happy boat right there.


Tuesday, March 3, 2009

A Few New Photos....

....taken and kindly forwarded from one of our anglers this week.




Monday, March 2, 2009

Made a Big Splash this Weekend....

Unfortunately, it's because as I was a little late to the boat Saturday morning, I ran in, stepped onto the gunnel, proceeded to take the next step onto one of the docking ropes, and immediately rolled off the side into the water.

Go me. It was probably karma. Greg was late the day before. When he arrived, he told the anglers that he'd been to three different bait shops looking for "giant live shrimp" that we'd use that day for bottom fishing. So, of course, smart ass me, as I was running in said to one of the anglers "Hey, I was looking for big shriiiiiiiim......**splash**. I guess you don't f@*k with the Captain.

Fortunately, though, after realizing it was only me that fell in and not a customer, Greg calmly walked to the office, bought me a dry shirt, and away we went.

Saturday was my first day out Swordfishing. We dropped baits six different times between 25 and 36 miles offshore, at depths ranging from 1300 to 1700 feet. We had three bites in the six drops, but unfortunately never really stuck the fish good, and came home empty handed.

We were fishing the same group of guys for the fourth straight day, and they understood the game, so they were good sports, and knew that they were more paying their dues than anything.

Good thing they were such avid fisherman, because the rest of the week pretty well sucked as well. We did catch the two Sails we saw on Friday, a double header actually, and boated the second for the pictures. Outside of that, fishing was just slow slow slow, and we tried basically everything around.

From the cold front two weeks ago, to strange winds and little current, conditions just haven't been great lately for anything.

There's another front moving through right now. Barely hit the 60s today with gusty winds. It's supposed to be warming up by next weekend, though, and we won't fish until then as we're taking the boat out of the water this week to clean and paint the hull in preparation for the trip to the Bahamas at the end of the month.

Finally, even though the fishing offshore wasn't great this past week, the Redfish and Snook were biting in the back. At least, they were biting for my roommate Capt. Drew Moret and his angler Baker Bishop. The two paired to win the Backcountry Fly Championship in Islamorada. They bested 35 other boats in the two day competition. Each team could submit their largest Redfish and largest Snook (both length) each day. They finished I believe with 117", including a 36" Snook on the second day. Their margin of victory was by over 10". Congrats on a great job fellas.

PS: Cellphones and saltwater apparently don't go well together. Hopefully I'll have a new one in a few days.