December 30, 2011

Flats Guides Offshore

A couple of buddies with the same day off, nice weather and reports of great offshore fishing, the shallow water boys headed out to the deep blue to kill something.

Thursday, I, Captain Peter Heydon and Captain Tony Skinner headed way out west toward the Marquesas for a day of bottom fishing.  Pete got some numbers from a friend of a killer grouper and snapper area.  Loaded with bottom fishing gear, chum and bunch of dead stuff for bait we headed out with great anticipation.  The weather was cool, calm and cloudy.  First area, first drop and boom, big 'ole red grouper.  Second bait down gets railed and its a big mutton snapper.  A few more grouper that we had to throw back from that spot and we moved to the next mark.  Drop down a bait and it gets railed by another keeper grouper.  This continued for most of the morning and then another little flurry at the end of the day.  In total we put six red grouper and two mutton snappers in the box along with a few mackerel.





Friday, day 2 of the flats guides adventure offshore, Captain Peter and I headed out to the Gulf Stream for some trolling.  Good reports of wahoo, dolphin and tuna the last few days, hope we aren't too late.  Pete and I have pretty good system, he rigs the baits and sets the rods and I drive the boat around, hopefully not in circles.  We ended up having a really good day of draggin' bait.  Four dolphin (Mahi Mahi), three blackfin tuna (mmm sushi) and a pile of bonitas and skip jacks we kept for shark bait on the flats.  The highlight of our day was a strike on the downrigger that pulled line of the TLD 30 like I had never heard.  Obviously a wahoo, this must have been quite a specimen.  Their initial runs are absolutely incredible, their is no comparison to the screaming drag in fishing like from a wahoo.  Well this fish hit another gear and we both said "Holy sh...."  Unfortunately the hook pulled only a few minutes in, it was such a downer, but absolutely incredible at the same time.






Captain Mike Bartlett
http://www.keywestflats.net/
http://www.facebook.com/CaptMikeBartlett

1 comment:

  1. You guys are having all the fun. Happy new year Mike and save some fish for me. Dick

    ReplyDelete