After last week’s trip, the guys wanted to go out and do it again (and see if they could beat Roger’s pending record grouper). Roger could not go and said that he was going to put a hex on us. He would not even let us take his lucky, blinking light thing. We started at the Eureka and hopped our way out. We never found any good concentration of sea bass. We caught some nice ones and Michael Hurst caught his first citation-sized sea bass. We decided that we had had enough of the little stuff and we were going to run up to the canyon and break Roger’s record. Lost an engine on the way. Roger was serious when he said that we were not allowed to break his record. He must have some type of GPS device hidden on board that activates if we get too close to his grouper spot. We limped all the way back in on one engine: trolling speed. I said that we are supposed to be looking for small bluefin tuna for VIMS (27-inch class) so we should put out some spreader bars. Bluefish like spreader bars. We would have one bluefish on the hook bait and several others trying to get the other squids. Lost one bar that got bit off. The guys were in tuna mode and had the gaff out. I asked if anyone wanted these fish, “oh yes”. OK, well some of these are pretty long (skinny), you might want to think about a release citation. After they gaffed the third one that looked long enough to me I said would someone please put a tape on that fish and see what size you are gaffing? It was 36.5 inches long. After that, they stopped gaffing them and we never got another long enough. The bluefish kept us very entertained from Wayne’s World to the Spring Chicken. From there to the Light Tower, we did not have a bite. No more grouper trips unlesss Roger can go.
Dr. Ken Neill, III
IGFA Representative
www.igfa.org
www.pswsfa.com
www.vbsf-hookedup.net/healthygrin/
