Left the ballpark at a little after 4:00am with Ken (aka Slickdeck), my buddy Jimmy and a greenhorn buddy of his. Ran to the jetties and met a nasty bunch of slop. Didn’t feel like dealing with that in the dark so we came back in and waited for light to be able to see what was coming. Saw Nauti Girl go by and tucked in behind her and another boat. Kept up with them for about 20 miles and decided not to continue the sloppy ride for another 2 hours, changed plans and went in search of bottom fish.
Headed down the the Greenville. As soon as we got there, I dropped a jig over the side and immediately hooked up with a bronzefin tuna. Handed the rod to the greenhorn Mike, whose biggest fish until then had been a walleye, it made an impression on him. Lines went in all around but every time I turned around we were getting cut off or busted off, spent the first hour tying on rigs. Lots of AJ’s and other toothy critters being caught.
Things settled down and we began catching some meatfish.
Relocated to try and get away from the donkey onslaught and caught some nice BSB and porgies. Mike had my brand new Stradic 8000 and Star Paraflex rod when he got hooked up on something big over the structure. He worked around the boat until it finally came up. Only it wasn’t it, it was them. 2 AJ’s on one butterfly jig, talk about a workout. Later on we were working some nice ledges when we saw a flash of green under the boat. The Greenhorn put his chicken rig in the water and was immediately hooked up on a nice dolphin: light line chicken rigs, a greenhorn with little experience and a big bull dolphin don’t make for good results. The fish came to the boat real green and by the time I had the gaff in hand, it came out of the water and busted off.
Fished around that ledge for a while putting more big BSB in the boat among other bottom dwellers. The grouper were no where to be found though.
Moved up to the parking lot on some more good bottom and did the same.
On the way in we stopped at the Upchurch
