Slay weekend on Brokeback Ocean!

[gumshoe]

You know, it might not be appropriate, but I had to work in a title to get people's attention...

Weekend weather looked spotty - on the off chance that the forecasters were on crack again, Capt. Les and crew decided to have a go at a weekend trip out on the big blue. We were sure to leave all the sheepherders on dry land!

Slay Ride was loaded to the gills with large white Fabers and 15 or so ponies, trolling gear, and as much ice as you can fit in a suburban. On board in addition to the Capt., were SB member Kitefisherman(John), me, Roddy and F'in Mike.

Leaving the dock at 7am on Saturday, we made our way out and started trolling. Despite what is a traditionally late start to full time trollers, we managed to boat several nice dolphin and a couple slingers.

After putting some good groceries on the ice, we decided to do some deep drops to look for the elusive gag grouper. John, Les and I dropped into the 80 degree water to find a mild thermocline that dropped bottom temps to 70 below 150'. We did a couple deep drops and were able to chip away at a couple decent grouper.

We then settled in for an evening of air conditioned rest (@ 2 hours each) and a solid evening of bottom fishing that netted a couple decent mutton snapper and a cobia that became the "surf" to go with steak & onions for dinner.

Seas were managable, but we would need to do some more searching to find waters with more wildlife to harvest the following day.

Back up and lines in at 6:15 for some trolling en route to our next dive sites. Water looked real fishy, but didn't produce much more than a couple knock downs, a large stripeless Wahoo (a.k.a kingfish) and a nice +/- 30 lb bull dolphin that we lost because I muffed the gaff attempt (again, my most sincere apologies John) .

Back in the water by lunchtime to find awesome bottom structure and a few more fish. Ended up with a decent gag a few scamps and a medium carbo: After a couple deep drops, we moved into some less deep (130') stuff and John & Les caught fire, hitting on a couple nice ARS's and some of the largest Mangrove's I've seen.

One last drop for John in 110 and he cleaned house on a couple decent hogs, grouper, and lobsters that look, and I quote "just like the bugs that you see on the 60 foot ledges in South Florida..." OK, I took some artistic license with that quote.

We could have kept going, plenty of tanks left, but the heat of day on this overnighter limited our ice supply, so we headed for the hill mid afternoon.

Me w/nice bull saturday morning:

More pictures to follow...

[gumshoe]

Les & John looking very happy :D

[gumshoe]

F'ing Mike with what he thought was an octopus...long story.

[gumshoe]

John ARS:

[gumshoe]

John with the combo platter of fish/lobster - Note, for the record, in SC, we have no closed season on lobster w/a 2 lobster per person limit per day. Here's John holding his Sunday bag limit and half of mine...

[gumshoe]

Me w/a gag/scamp from the deep.

[gumshoe]

It was shadowed, but I think this was the Carbo:

[Slay Ride]

Good weekend. AUE Mike was supposed to come up for some wreck diving, but alternative plans had to be made. Seas were rough until Sunday. Grilled cobia and NY Strip Steak on the boat for dinner rocked!

MUTTON HONEY. We've only shot one mutton in all my years here and this trip we get 4 really nice ones.

Awesome trip. I'm sure Kitefisherman will chime in when he gets home tonight.

Lots of good groceries and good times. I'm glad there are no picture of me in my undies.

Les

[Slay Ride]

The mangroves were everywhere on one dive. Big ones. I had fun with those.

[Marcus]

NICE mutton, Les....some good groceries indeed.

[gumshoe]

On the ascent after 2 of the deep dives, I saw a large wahoo on one and a whole school of very large African American Pompano - unfortunately, they did not allow me to close the gap and get off a shot. Still cool to see in that deep blue water.

[Slay Ride]

I wish the picture of your Carbo would have come out. That was a very pretty fish. That's the first or maybe second one for the boat.

Disclaimer once again-----

Loster season is year round in SC.

[JAW]

Good way to spend the weekend.

I want to see a picture of an African American Pampano.....

jason

[Slay Ride]

We didn't shoot any. They were around while we were on deco. Freeshaft+180 foot+ Deco= No Sling.

But they're out there. I'll be ready next time.

[100days-a-year]

Nice combo platter

Les ,we keep the line wrapped around the trigger housing til we head up just in case of a jack attack.Africans tend to stay downcurrent so if you're pointing that way during deco.....

[dagodiver]

Very nice all.!


Dago.

[kitefisherman]

On my last drop, Les put me solo on a broken up patch of rocks in about 110' (the shallowest dive of the trip). The vis wasn’t as good as out deep - only abot 20 feet. There weren’t but a few small scamps and porgies when I hit bottom. Soon a large school of 30-50 pound amberjacks surrounded me (we don’t shoot amberjacks up there because they are full of worms head to tail). Behind the amberjacks that are swimming left, I see a nice red snapper swimming right. I aim and threaded the needle stoning the red before he got out of range. That's the snapper on the right.

I snared up a nice 8 pound lobster, but there wasn’t anything else to shoot. After I started my ascent and was about 50 feet off the bottom, another red snapper swims up and stares into my mask. All I have is my freeshaft gun - so normally I would have hesitated to shoot. Fortunately, I have the coil cord/nylock dealy that Rich Taylor set me up with a couple of weeks ago (I hadn’t had a chance to use it). I slipped the nylock over my shaft and stoned the red. The shaft stuck in his skull, but I probably wouldn’t have taken the shot without the confidence of not losing a $60 shaft. The coil cord never stretched. That's the snapper on the left.

The fish were twin 14 pounders. Maybe one was looking for its mate?

While I was on my deco stop I was surrounded by a herd of spotted dolphin. Although most people think of them as cute and cuddly, I knew that they probably just wanted to steal my fish. I started to think back to bgbill’s post about what would happen if you powerheaded a dolphin. Fortunately, I didn’t have to find out. Experience has taught me that anything appearing that cute and cuddly usually ultimately winds up being a pain in the ass. For once I didn't have to learn the lesson the hard way. :D

More stories later. Just got home, fixed my computer and got done cleaning fish.

[SpearMax]

Good work John and Les and the gang. It was great meeting Les at SBO. That tech diving up there sounds pretty interesting. And, you guys seem to always bring home the bacon (I mean fish & lobsters). :cool:

[bgbill]

Good work John and Les and the gang. It was great meeting Les at SBO. That tech diving up there sounds pretty interesting. And, you guys seem to always bring home the bacon (I mean fish & lobsters). :cool:

Steve (inletsurf) is the one who is famous for bringing home the bacon. :D

[junior]

So what supposedly happens when you power head a porpoise?

[bgbill]

So what supposedly happens when you power head a porpoise?

I think he got confused, I was telling him about when Bottom Dweller was getting molested by some Porpoise and I was more nervous about shooting a porpoise than I would be a shark, because porpoise can be mean and I figured they would ram me, and seriously mess me up.

I have never shot or powerheaded a porpoise.

[Spearchucker]

Steve has powerhead a land porpoise (thats a type of whale, right?)

[kitefisherman]

The speculation was that either the herd would run away or they would turn on you avenging or protecting their buddy. It was pure speculation. I'm glad that I didn't have to find out. Still bgbill's speculations filled my head as I was trying to swim closer to the hovering and drifting boat as the dolphin were closing in on me from the other direction. I had to swim on my back so that I could keep eye contact with the dolphin so that they couldn't attack me from the rear. Like I said, I'm glad that push didn't turn into shove. I may have confused a post with a telephone conversation - still I could hear Bret's voice as I was watching my computer count down my deco. I learned later that they were more interested in mating - I'm glad that I didn't have to participate in that activity either. :D

[bgbill]

Did you enjoy being molested by the porpoise as much as Bottom Dweller did? :D

[junior]

Whose the guy that the turtles wanna hump. Ain't he a Carolinian:D

[kitefisherman]

Did you enjoy being molested by the porpoise as much as Bottom Dweller did? :D

I imagine that I pretty much felt like a fat chick feels when Marcus unbuttons his shirt. :D

[junior]

Steve has powerhead a land porpoise (thats a type of whale, right?)

I think you have that confused. It's powerhead from a land porpoise... :eek:

[jfjf]

Nice fish! I freeshafted a grouper right in front of a porpoise in the middle grounds last year. He was closer to the fish than I was. i would not have taken the shot if it had been a shark.

The result: nothing; the porpoise watched me string up the grouper and he swam off. He never looked like he even considered taking it.

[bgbill]

I think you have that confused. It's powerhead from a land porpoise... :eek:
:thumps:

[gumshoe]

That had to be the horniest pod of dolphin I have ever seen.

They had the nerve to come out of the water and look you in the eye right after getting done...

But, we were watching, so I guess we're no better. :D

[greg1]

Well, I guess now we'll just have to see if the popoise at least picks up the phone and calls. I bet he won't, but it would be the right thing to do if he did.

Sorry I missed you this weekend John. I was supposed to be on another boat Saturday and we cancelled due to the forecast and being short a crew member.

[Slay Ride]

I think the porpoises were mating. We saw lots of spooning going on from the boat. I get the turtle luvin, Kite gets the porpoise luvin.

[kitefisherman]

We also saw a lot of sharks this trip. Previously, I had only seen one shark in South Carolina - on a 180' ledge that Rob and I had dropped on.

This time I think that we saw sharks on most of our deep drops. I usually saw them checking us out from a distance. However, I didn’t notice any aggressive behavior even when we had fish on us. On our first drop, Chris had one swim up to him within poking distance, but he said that it wasn’t aggressive. He also said that I had one a few feet behind me as I was climbing back into the boat, but he didn’t want to tell me about it and alarm me.

[Griswold]

Kite,

Do you have any pics of the cord/nylock setup? Sounds like a great solution for freeshafters who want to be able to switch to line when necessary. I assume you used it on your MT3, based on the $60 shaft price.

[kitefisherman]

Griswold: It is Rich Taylor's and Ken Jones's (Big Pig) invention which they shared with me. I suggest sending them a PM. I don't have any pictures. Basically, it's a coil cord attached to a nut that slips over the barb of your shaft but is small enough not to come off the back end. I's use is exactly as you described. This is the first time that I've used it.

I was shooting my Wong Florida Freeshafter with a Riffe shaft.

[Griswold]

Kite,

I remember reading about you guys working on the coil cords and a way to quickly connect them. Just thought I'd try to shed a little light on it to generate some interest for the guys who made it. Not much need for it on the rigs. I hope to do some Florida trips in the near future - sounds perfect for that.

[kitefisherman]

Les shot this 17.5 pound mutton on our first drop together in 180'. I hit the bottom first and looked up to see Les about 25 feet above me swimming out towards the mutton that was slowly drifting to the bottom with a shaft in its head. He freeshafted it in midwater. Quite a shot and the second mutton that he had ever seen off South Carolina. You can see the exit wound from Les’s shaft in the photo - picture perfect!

Later that dive Les was about 20 feet above me on the ascent. I saw a freeshaft fly by and spiral to the bottom about 90 feet below. I wondered whether Les was shooting at another fish or whether he had a shark bothering him. It turned out that the shaft had just slipped out of his unbanded gun.

The next day in 140' I came upon a Biller freeshaft laying on the bottom. I picked it up and swam it back to Les who had just missed a nice gag and found himself without another shaft to fling at the gag that was gawking at him.

You never know where you might find one of Les’s freeshafts. :D

[Slay Ride]

The hole in that picture is the exit side. Just barely, oh so barely came out. I know I was amazed, but knew I had a good shot and could take it. Fish sure are pretty out of the water when they're stoned.