Had a buddy in town from Charlotte who wanted to do a little offshore fishing. Now Bucci had fished offshore a few times–but always from a sportsfisher or when we fished together out of Cabo with that brutal 2 mile run to deep water. I had a surprise for him. The crew assembled at my house at 2:30am, Bucci came straight in from Charlotte after a brutal day of tennis, golf & dinner with his wife (yes, his life is one long beer commercial). Dave & Jeannie showed up minus “The Little Prince” Andrew who at 17 has better things to do than hang out with the old folks. We pulled away from the cut at 3:37, ran into a choppy & breezy harbor–##@@!!–it was looking like another wet & bumpy ride. Went ahead & put up the curtains–no reason to wait. Rolled out through the shipping channel & punched in the numbers South–headed to E Banks. A little sloppy, but not anything like last weekend. Bucci, Jeannie & Dave settled into the EZR’s in “The Salon” while I stared at the radar. After 30 miles, I begin to dream about the deep water run in the Keys but snap back to Charleston reality & push on for another hour. Original plans were to drop in a 135 ft, but we didn’t see any life, rips or weeds or so we pushed out a little deeper. Lines in a little before 6 & first fish hits the WWB–kingfish. A small mahi follows up a little later & then we have a screamer on the ledge–wahoo?–nope cuda–argh! We troll out deeper, (against Scotts advice from Haddrells) to 400 ft…nothing. We pick up & run back to shallower water & pick up a couple of nice gaffers. We had one go in, out & finally back in the box…whew. Very slow until around 1 pm where we are back in 135 ft with some scattered weeds & rips. A school of mahi greyhound through the baits…always a cool thing to see! Bigger than peanuts…let’s call them walnuts. We land 3 & turn back & make a few runs picking up 10 or so–all tossed back. Lots of radio chatter of billfish being caught, but it didn’t happen for us. At 2:30, boat drinks are poured, everything
Congradulations on the nice catch. Thanks for the report. Tight Lines.