After watching the weather for a few days and asking advice from those with more experience offshore, my son and I and two fellow ECFC (EastCooperFishingClub)members buddied up with another ECFC member and his crew to look for dolphin in deep (for me) water. After running out for a few hours behind the Ali Bell, “Smelly” (my sons nickname in the club) and I became concerned about the fact that the gas gauge indicated that we were approaching “half empty”. Talked to the Ali Bell for a little while and told him that given the fact that this was the first time out this far with the LD II (Seahunt Triton 207 with Yamaha 150)we wanted to play it safe and did not want to go another 18 miles to a more promising location. Thus, we parted ways and we decided to stay in touch by radio. We then continued fish in <200 ft. Just a little while after putting the lines out “it was on”. Two fish on at the same time and an epic battle (well, not really, but who cares) followed. After 10 minutes or so we had the first two fish in the boat… apparently we did an ok job with the ballyhoo rigging !!
Anyway, to make a long story short, we trolled a little more… brought one more dolphin in the boat, saw quite a few turtles, ended up fishing one of the marked holes where we did not catch anything else but sharks, and were back at Remley’s around 5:00 PM where we met up with the Ali Bell again. We had a blast!! Even though I believe I made the right choice to change plans when my confidence in the gas gauge was decreasing and when the weather started to look really iffy, I am a little sad that I was not able to put “the crew” on more fish. However, given the fact that this was the LDII’s first offshore trip, I should not be too disappointed. It was good to talk to others on the radio to stay in touch and keep updated on their activities. Atarrival, I estimated that we burned 40-45 gallon (65 gallon in tank) but will have to fill up tank to get a good reading. Burning 40-45 gallons on a trip like this aint too bad