Left DI marina at 5.45 with Cane Pole, and my son (11) and daughter (20) and headed out to troll then do some bottom fishing. Stopped in 140ft and while setting the outriggers we see a Sailfish 50yds away swimming toward the boat, I quickly rig bait and deploy one line. Can’t get the Sail to bite so we put out the other five lines. About 45 minutes later we have a large Dolphin crash the short left (tld25) and peel off about 300yds of line finally when he stops we are having trouble turning him. Cane Pole is frantically trying to clear lines so we can chase the fish, were giving instructions to my kids who don’t have much of a clue. We finally get control of the fish and the line breaks with over 200 yds out, line was chafed either on the initial run or was already worn. This was the biggest Dolphin we had seen this year. Ended up fishing around many breaks with a few other boats, lost a few more dolphin then put a 40-50lb Hoo in the boat. My son finally caught his 1st dolphin (16lb) and daughter caught a Cuda.
At about 12:30 we started bottom fishing in 170Fft on some new structure we found while running to one of “my spots”. Caught the usual on the bottom, Can Pole hooked into something real big (we’ll say Grouper) and lost it half way up. Then the daughter gets a large bite on the Butterfly Jig and gets rocked up, she has to pass the rod to me and I get the fish loose but it breaks off after a while. She then hooks a reef donkey that proceeds to whoop her, she has to pass the rod to Cane Pole and a 40lb+ Cuda eats the donkey, the head weighed 12-15lbs. Boy the kids really loved that; the Cuda hung around the boat for quite a while.
Over all not one of the best days for Dark Star but I would consider it one of my better days. I was able to share my passion with my family, have them see lots of life on the ocean and it seems they are hooked as well. Ocean was like a lake yesterday. Many thanks to my good friend Cane Pole for helping out and suggesting we take a swim in 170ft, it was quite