Yesterday I decided to attend the Sellsfish Offshore University and man, what an experience it was. We started out at 7:00AM, had our “livies” in the well at 7:15AM and proceeded to our offshore destiny. Weatherman screwed up again. The 2’ seas out 20nm ended up being 3.5’ and 4 seconds. In a 20’ boat, we decided to proceed to 80’ - 90’ and start there. Lines in by 8:30 and pull up nothing but trash and bait for over an hour. Did put some nice “grouper candy” b-liners in the live well and 1 trigger fish in the box before venturing out to 110’. Here the trigger bite was on. They hit the bait before it even reached bottom. We had 1 rod armed with live bait for grouper/snapper and 1 floating with a cigar minnow attached. Sells and I each manned a rod and went after the triggers. Placed quite a few in the box but still no grouper or snapper. By now, the seas were finally 2’ and 7 seconds, NICE. Proceeded out to 120’ and anchored over good bottom. Trigger bite on hard. Still no grouper or snapper. Sells did manage to pull up 2 morray eels, so we knew the bottom was good.
Around 4:45PM, we saw the storm clouds elevated over Georgetown and decided it was time to clean up and GO HOME. We were halfway home and the weather started getting rough, the tiny ship was tossed. If not for the courage of the fearless crew the Grady would be lost, the Grady would be lost. I was praying hard that we would make it through the rocks before all hell broke loose. We didn’t! Just as we hit the top of the jetties, we encountered 50mph straight line winds and lightning ALL around us. If that weren’t scary enough, a water spout formed 200’ off our starboard bow. WOW, we knew we were in trouble. But wait, it got worse. Halfway through the rocks, the rain hits. Now, visibility is zero as we make our way for nearest dock to moor the boat. Just then, nearly every container ship on the eastern seaboard decides to take off in the harbor and jetties. We must have met up with 5 ships during this whole ordeal. Not condit
Glad to hear you made it back safe, thats always a good thing. Good report on the trip, congraduatetions on the catch.Never had the pleasure of fishing with Sells ,but understand its an education on every trip.Bottom fishing Guru that one is.Enjoy those triggers- I love them.
28.5sportcraft twin evinrude 150 ocean pros (Deceased may she rest in peace)
20 triggers
C bass
Red Porgy
Gray Snapper
Hot Shower (sells I owe you 1)
Cold Beer
LOL
Glad you guys made it safely back home. Sells knows his stuff…
Originally posted by livinandfishin
Trust me, while your pinned down taking enemy fire and you call in for air support and you hear a jets afterburner crackin the air overhead would be the most liberating sound you could ever ask for. I haven’t experienced that first hand in actual combat, but I have trained in a similar scenario where it still makes the hair stand up on your body.
Forgot to mention one other highlight of the trip. just under the boat, in 120’ we saw what was at least a 12’ tiger shark. It was every bit of 3 feet thick. In a 20’ boat, glad we didn’t hook that monster. Glad we weren’t diving:smiley:
Jersey Boy, when my Grady is all grown up, it wants to be a 306 with twin 350 yami’s. Still, wouldn’t have wanted to face those conditions in ANY other 20’ boat. She handled it better than I did.
E.F., yah it wasn’t the most productive trip as far as fish in the box. We didn’t make it to 160’ - 180’ as planned. At 120’ the temp was 83.9 degrees. When temp drops into 70’s, those numbers will be full of broom tails and ARS. Looking forward to a repeat trip with Sells when conditions warrant. Still a fun day.
That’s right Sellsfish only uses large live baits to get the big fish…
I wouldn’t know for sure though because I’ve never fished with him. The last time he was supposed to fish with me, he wouldn’t go out on a day with SE 10kts forecasted in a 20’ boat. Now I see him out there on a 10kt NE day in a 20’ boat.
sshaarda
We fished that day also, it was a beautiful day on the water and that storm was the last thing I was expecting to see! We first noticed it about 20 miles off shore of the jetty’s on the radar. I turned on the weather radio that’s when I knew we were in trouble. We sat off shore for a few minutes to assess the situation, then I saw a small window to sneak though between the cells. I put the boat to the pins and we ran in from the # 7 buoy to the coast guard station at 40 knots! We also had lots of ships coming out to deal with but our visibility was not zero, I think we were about ten minutes in front of you. Glad you made it back! It was bad in a 50 foot sport fish I cant imagine going though that in a 20 footer!
Thanks M.M. It was a very nice day out there. Great day for anchoring. You are right about the “window of opportunity”. We saw it also but were there too late. I knew we were in trouble when the temperature dropped 20 degrees just before entering the rocks! Glad you all made it in before we did.
Wow…I get back from scouting oyster beds, and now I’m going to Gilligan’s Island, with undersized B-liners, and I am owed a shower.
It was definitely an adventure to say the least…quite a storm. The fishing sucked, I was all over grouper, but they had lockjaw. sent down plenty of nice live baits…pinfish, pigfish, 12" B-liners (Phin), and ended up with Moray eels and trigger chewed baits. I would liked to have gone out deeper, but the seas were to big for the small boat. It was never unsafe, just not ideal conditions. In fact the worst seas of the day were inside the rocks, when we met the storm, all the way down to the grillage. I’ll bet at the time of this writing, Shane has a polyball and and a mighty mite anchor.
E.F…I’m sorry to let you down
hoppy…I felt like Stressrelief when I saw the waterspout forming near us, and you could see the wind blowing across the harbor…wish we had a camera.
NMFS = No More Fishing Season
“Back home we got a taxidermy man. He gonna have a heart attack when he see what I brung him”
