Left Edisto about 5:30 AM with a couple of other boats with the same idea. Really nice ride out to the Edisto Banks. We high speed trolled for the last 7 miles. Something smacked the Black Bart and cut it off - a bad start.
We started trolling right after 8:00 am. Picked up a cuda and then not much of anything else. We trolled out to 300 feet and all around and then back to the banks. Something hit the Way Back and cut off our black cedar plug. Then we had a cutoff on the planer and a window shopper cut off one of the dredge plastic fish and smacked the Black Bart and then left. It seemed like it was going to be one of those days and from the radio chatter, no one else was doing any better.
We decided to pick them up about 1:00 and go bottom fish. Slowed down to about 4 knots and started getting the lines in and finally something good happened. The wireline with the planer screamed and we ended up with a 40 pound wahoo. My 15 year old stuck him right in the head for a great gaff job.
We ran in to 100 feet and caught a few bottom fish and lost a Shimano butterfly jig to something real big. We got it about 10 feet off the bottom and then he decided he didn’t like the ride. Whatever it was proved to me that the Shimano Trevally rods are near unbreakable and finally snapped the 80 pound spectra.
A lot of fun all in all - $250 worth of gas, $100 worth of tackle, $35 worth of bait and ice - One nice wahoo.
Its funny you had the action when you slowed to retrieve lines. On another trip we found that was the way to entice strikes along weedlines. Then Saturday it happened again, when we slowed to pick up our lines at 4:30p, and a school of peanuts swarmed all our baits. As we brought them to the boat, they probably looked at the heavy tackle and figured they would be relased.
If so they underestimated how hungry we were…and even though a small dolphin does not provide much fight on 50W’s…they are very tender when sauteed in cornmeal.
I have had it happen 2-3 times. Caught a nice dolphin a few years ago after a nothing day on the last line out. I have had more than one time when I changed speed get a strike. I think Jim Bost out of Edisto has stated that he slows and lets the lines drop sometimes to try to entice a wahoo.
as for the slowing down thing here is another trick when you work a weedline or structure with no bites try and stop the boat let the baits sink then put the boat back in gear caught lots of fish this way
I get all my Black Barts for free - so they are not expensive.
I do appreciate your pro tips though. I guess that you are telling me don’t fish with trolling lures made of plastic inside 300 feet.
I am sure all the members here will take you up on that and stop wasting our time.
I didnt call it a pro tip. What I said was I personally dont ever put out a 50 to 100 dollar or more lure out in shallow water. I normally wont use plastics: Joe Yee Super Plunger, Pol Kai, Ruckus,etc…; when I think wahoo or another toothy creature will cut it off. I know that wahoos sometimes venture deeper. If you have an endless source then dont worry about it. The dredge plastics one day I had a tuna off hatteras explode on it and F the whole dredge up, that sort of thing is unaviodable i understand. Rig a spanish for a big wahoo they will hit it like their pissed its in their neighborhood.