Went bottom fishng in 75-100 feet on Sunday. I dropped a 10 inch bottom dweller down on 10/0 circle hook and got ready. Somehow I ended up with a birds nest in my reel when the bait hit the bottom. After a couple minutes I could feel the bait getting nervous and bouncing around. I knew this wasn’t gonna be pretty. My line was backlashed and wrapped around the reel handle reel bad. I got the reel handle off but the braided line was too tangled and evetuallly broke. Luckily a buddy was holding on to the line but the fish was already rocked up. We walked the line back and tried to handline the fish with no success. While attempting to tie the line on another rod the line broke on the bottom of the boat. It was depressing but it happens.
About a half hour later I was tired of bait fishing and decided to pick up the butterfly jigging rod and try that for a bit. I hooked up a coulple of time and landed a trigger and lost something large half way up. I was just about done. When I started winding up the jig, it came tight. It was pretty heavy and felt like he was in the rocks. Eventually, I worked in out of his rocky lair and pumped him off the bottom. The leader came in site, then the jig, but no fish. It took a minute before I saw my braided line from earlier wrapped around the stinger hook of the jig. No way! A buddy handline the now tired beast to the surface and this is what it was.
My whole rig was attached to the circle hook in his lip. I even got my 16 oz. bank sinker back. The crazy part is I have a hard time tying a knot that won't slip with braid, but it tied itself with a knot that pulled a grouper of his cave.
We also caught a limit of BSB, some triggers, porgies and b-liners.