rounded up a great crew for my first time heading out of MI. Greg, Paul and Danny not a young whipper snapper in the group. Blew a tire and had issues with the trailer brakes on the way down so I pushed start time to 530. First Beer was at 6:00 for my late Uncle Billy - May he look down on us and help us find fish. Ride out was a nice 27mph in a 2-3 ft sea that had a few potholes in the road. Headed out on a 125degree heading. Saw a scattered weedline starting for form in 105 ft (yes that is 47miles out) Had a couple of bites right off the bat. Hot color was anything with pink. Mostly small fish in the sligger range. put a couple in the boat and headed deeper - 10 more miles to 150ft and put a couple of gaffers in the box, 18lb kingfish, 4 cudas. For about 2 hours our hooks turned to rubber we missed 9 fish on short strikes and pulled hooks (I of course blamed it all on cudas)…Most intersting bite… a school of porposise came in hard and were looking at the boat and baits… bam 2 lines down and a fast mover across the teasers… 1 fished lost after about 5 minutes and after 35 minutes (almost spooled the 30W twice) we got out look at the final fish… TUNA… well kinda … it was a 15lb foul hooked bonita. hooked right infront of the tail… now that was a fight with a very disappointing end. But we stuck him in box…
230 we head back to 115ft and find the mother of all weedlines… 50ft across with 1/2 acre matts that runs for about 1 mile… We were down to our last 3 HOO so cut bonita strips were the ticket. boated several more fish and released a few of the slingers. What a great afternoon bite… We could not get 5 lines out…
We had plans on diving for bottom fish on the way in but we left our spears uncocked and our tanks full.
Ended the day with a cooler full of dolphinfish and the best night sleep I have had in many months.
Bottom line: it is a LONG way out of MI but the ocean does hold fish. 1KF, 14 DF, 6Cuda, 1 Bonita and a great day.
262 Scout Abaco
Those bonita do put up a fight dont they.