OK, its not exactly a Baffin report but this is what I've been doing the past week or so. Sometimes you just have to wet a line in the Big Pond for a little variety.
Where do I begin? From the first trip I took on the Possession Limit with Capt. John Stout almost 4 years ago until this most recent trip, I have had nothing less than epic trips aboard this vessel.
John has become a good friend and a man I trust and respect immensely. He has put me on personal bests, and many "firsts" and I anxiously await each opportunity to fish with him. This trip was no different and exceeded my high expectations.
We met at GYB before 6:00pm on Thursday with our personal gear prepared for three days of fishing. Randal, Brent, John, Russ and I joined Capt. Stout at the berth. He fired up the twin Detroits and in no time we had cleared the jetties for parts known only to our Capt.
We ran at 9 knots for most of the night with each of us taking a shift on the bridge to keep an eye on the radar. After an uneventful night, we were at our first destination to try our hand at a little bottom fishing.
I managed a chunky red snapper on my first drop and we soon had 4 or 5 solid snapper to start the trip off right.
We were searching for fish that like to hang out in a little deeper water and soon headed out to our second destination. We set out a 7 lure spread and trolled for several hours.
Capt. Stout forewarned us that he expected it to be a little slow. Well, he was right. But he also said that you just never know when a billfish is going to show up. He got that right too.
We had trolled for a couple of hours only getting bothered by an occasional barracuda when we finally got some action. Russ was first up and it didn't take long to figure out that we had a very acrobatic white marlin on the line.
The fish made 5 or 6 spectacular jumps and then stayed down for a while. Russ was having quite a time wrestling in his first marlin. As it got closer to the boat, we saw that when it landed from the last jump, it had gotten tail wrapped. No wonder he was having such a hard time reeling it in.
We backed down and John got hold of the leader and untangled the fish. We estimated it to be around 85 or 90 pounds, tagged it and released it. My pics weren't very good but I did get a short video clip after it was landed. Congrats Russ.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOJr5wI544w
We trolled until just before dark all the way to our night time destination. We got to witness a beautiful sunset before things got interesting.
We pulled in all the big rods and grabbed some jigging set ups to try to pick up some blackfin tuna for chunking (chunking blackfin is very effective for picking up their bigger cousins the yellowfin). Capt. Stout instructed us to drop down about 200 feet and jig it a couple of times and then rip the lure toward the surface.
On my first drop, I got the lure down, jigged it a couple of times like he told me, and then started ripping it to the surface......... Bam!!..... almost sprained my wrist when the little 8 pound football shaped missile hit it.
I had the hot hand on getting the bait and hoped it would carry over when the big bite started.
We got set up to tangle with the yellowfins and it took a little while for things to heat up. But when they did, they started with a bang.
Again I was the lucky one when this bruiser fell for a chunk of blackfin. Let me tell you, if you have never had the thrill of hooking one of these fish, you are really missing something. They are extremely powerful and the words "give up" are not in their vocabulary. Everyone should experience this at least once in their lifetime.
Randal was next up with back to back tussles. Of course the second one was bigger than the first and I detected a little bit of strain in his demeanor on that second one.
Here is a little clip of the end of the first fight. The battle had already been going on for a good 15 to 20 minutes.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D4F5oVFCJE
We filled up the cooler with all the tuna we wanted leaving some room for some tasty grouper which we planned on trying for at our first spot the next morning.
We had a scrumptious chicken fried steak dinner and a very welcome shower before setting off for our bottom fishing destination. Again, we ran shifts on the bridge as we slowly but steadily covered water. By sunrise, we were ready to hit it again.
Red snapper again made the morning exciting as we all got in on this action.
I managed to put the first grouper in the box with my personal best marbled grouper. An interesting sidenote: If I had caught this fish just a little over a year ago, I would have had the Texas State record. Biologists say these fish are somewhat rare but not so aboard the Possession Limit where several state and the current World Record have been caught.
Then it became amberjack city as we made a couple of stops and were literally overrun with AJ's. As we prepared to make another move, Brent hooked up on something solid in about 250 feet of water. The heavy fish and my friend Brent battled over the same 15 yards of line for a good 10 minutes before he started to finally get the upper hand. We all got a bit of a surprise when this 80+ pound brute broke the surface. Awesome catch Brent!
Russ took the prize for most colorful fish with this brightly marked yellowfin grouper.
After going at it hard for that long, we were all looking forward to another hot shower and grilled steak dinner before turning in. I gotta admit my shift that night (which was very uneventful BTW) was a little harder to handle than the previous two. I guess the adrenaline can only carry you for so long.
We cleared the jetties around 9:00am on Sunday and after a 2 1/2 hour cleanup of the boat and the fish, we relaxed with some deliciously refreshing frozen margarutas. Who says Capt. Stout doesn't know how to treat his crew?? LOL
It was another fantastic trip with some new friends and plenty of excitement to go around. I hope to have many more opportunities to fish aboard the PL. Thanks again Capt. Stout
Remember to practice conservation and just keep 5. Later, Aubrey
Where do I begin? From the first trip I took on the Possession Limit with Capt. John Stout almost 4 years ago until this most recent trip, I have had nothing less than epic trips aboard this vessel.
John has become a good friend and a man I trust and respect immensely. He has put me on personal bests, and many "firsts" and I anxiously await each opportunity to fish with him. This trip was no different and exceeded my high expectations.
We met at GYB before 6:00pm on Thursday with our personal gear prepared for three days of fishing. Randal, Brent, John, Russ and I joined Capt. Stout at the berth. He fired up the twin Detroits and in no time we had cleared the jetties for parts known only to our Capt.
We ran at 9 knots for most of the night with each of us taking a shift on the bridge to keep an eye on the radar. After an uneventful night, we were at our first destination to try our hand at a little bottom fishing.
I managed a chunky red snapper on my first drop and we soon had 4 or 5 solid snapper to start the trip off right.
We were searching for fish that like to hang out in a little deeper water and soon headed out to our second destination. We set out a 7 lure spread and trolled for several hours.
Capt. Stout forewarned us that he expected it to be a little slow. Well, he was right. But he also said that you just never know when a billfish is going to show up. He got that right too.
We had trolled for a couple of hours only getting bothered by an occasional barracuda when we finally got some action. Russ was first up and it didn't take long to figure out that we had a very acrobatic white marlin on the line.
The fish made 5 or 6 spectacular jumps and then stayed down for a while. Russ was having quite a time wrestling in his first marlin. As it got closer to the boat, we saw that when it landed from the last jump, it had gotten tail wrapped. No wonder he was having such a hard time reeling it in.
We backed down and John got hold of the leader and untangled the fish. We estimated it to be around 85 or 90 pounds, tagged it and released it. My pics weren't very good but I did get a short video clip after it was landed. Congrats Russ.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOJr5wI544w
We trolled until just before dark all the way to our night time destination. We got to witness a beautiful sunset before things got interesting.
We pulled in all the big rods and grabbed some jigging set ups to try to pick up some blackfin tuna for chunking (chunking blackfin is very effective for picking up their bigger cousins the yellowfin). Capt. Stout instructed us to drop down about 200 feet and jig it a couple of times and then rip the lure toward the surface.
On my first drop, I got the lure down, jigged it a couple of times like he told me, and then started ripping it to the surface......... Bam!!..... almost sprained my wrist when the little 8 pound football shaped missile hit it.
I had the hot hand on getting the bait and hoped it would carry over when the big bite started.
We got set up to tangle with the yellowfins and it took a little while for things to heat up. But when they did, they started with a bang.
Again I was the lucky one when this bruiser fell for a chunk of blackfin. Let me tell you, if you have never had the thrill of hooking one of these fish, you are really missing something. They are extremely powerful and the words "give up" are not in their vocabulary. Everyone should experience this at least once in their lifetime.
Randal was next up with back to back tussles. Of course the second one was bigger than the first and I detected a little bit of strain in his demeanor on that second one.
Here is a little clip of the end of the first fight. The battle had already been going on for a good 15 to 20 minutes.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D4F5oVFCJE
We filled up the cooler with all the tuna we wanted leaving some room for some tasty grouper which we planned on trying for at our first spot the next morning.
We had a scrumptious chicken fried steak dinner and a very welcome shower before setting off for our bottom fishing destination. Again, we ran shifts on the bridge as we slowly but steadily covered water. By sunrise, we were ready to hit it again.
Red snapper again made the morning exciting as we all got in on this action.
I managed to put the first grouper in the box with my personal best marbled grouper. An interesting sidenote: If I had caught this fish just a little over a year ago, I would have had the Texas State record. Biologists say these fish are somewhat rare but not so aboard the Possession Limit where several state and the current World Record have been caught.
Then it became amberjack city as we made a couple of stops and were literally overrun with AJ's. As we prepared to make another move, Brent hooked up on something solid in about 250 feet of water. The heavy fish and my friend Brent battled over the same 15 yards of line for a good 10 minutes before he started to finally get the upper hand. We all got a bit of a surprise when this 80+ pound brute broke the surface. Awesome catch Brent!
Russ took the prize for most colorful fish with this brightly marked yellowfin grouper.
After going at it hard for that long, we were all looking forward to another hot shower and grilled steak dinner before turning in. I gotta admit my shift that night (which was very uneventful BTW) was a little harder to handle than the previous two. I guess the adrenaline can only carry you for so long.
We cleared the jetties around 9:00am on Sunday and after a 2 1/2 hour cleanup of the boat and the fish, we relaxed with some deliciously refreshing frozen margarutas. Who says Capt. Stout doesn't know how to treat his crew?? LOL
It was another fantastic trip with some new friends and plenty of excitement to go around. I hope to have many more opportunities to fish aboard the PL. Thanks again Capt. Stout
Remember to practice conservation and just keep 5. Later, Aubrey
