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-   -   Gagalicious (http://www.spearboard.com/showthread.php?t=20185)

RichT 07-31-2005 08:55 PM

Gagalicious
 
Well... its been a long time since I’ve wrote a fishing report but after Saturdays incredible day I figured I would.

Of course Saturdays weather report indicated that the entire Gulf was going to resemble a Lutz retention pond but this years weather has been anything but stellar as you all know.
It took about five miles out of the pass before we knew that NOAA must have been hitting the crack pipe again. :mad:

Our plan was to look at some deep numbers on the far west side of the grounds but members of our crew started questioning “the plan” about halfway there when we were slugging it out through solid 3-4's with a few 6 footers thrown in just to make it interesting.
We stopped for a break and decided to see if we had anything in the area we were presently in.
The only thing in the area was a "spring” number that none of us had heard of before in this area or been to.
We decided to look for it since we were in the area. We searched for about 15 minutes with out even a AJ , or a barracuda blip on the depth finder. We were just about to leave when the screen lit up from the bottom to about 80 feet off the bottom!

First team of JBY and Abdiver geared up to check it out.
They reported the vis was incredible till about twenty feet from the bottom where it turned into a very hazy 5-10 feet of hazy vis. They said there was so much bait, AJ’s, grouper, snapper and booming jewfish over the 20 foot hole that it was hard to pick fish out to shoot! They came back with a beautiful 11 pound american red, several nice gags and An AJ each!
It was about this time that we had to make a decision to press on or turn for home due to the rough seas.
My vote was to press onward as I had just received a new custom made gun that a friend of mine worked all night the previous night to finish and I was eager to check out its superb craftsmanship.

I could tell the other guys were not real happy but they were going to be happy at my insistence to press onward by the end of the day. :cool:
We continued to slug it out there dodging several thunderstorms in the process and finnaly got to the area we wanted to be in.
We had numbers to look at that we had never been to before and started searching for them.
We would find a promising piece of bottom and try drift fishing each spot but everything appeared to be mostly Red grouper pothole bottom until we drove over one spot that made the bottom machine light up like a Christmas tree!

So now it was Sea-ment's and my turn to dive. Unfortunately we had a little too much jug line on and the current was ripping so by the time we actually reached the spot we were nearly in deco!

continued-

RichT 07-31-2005 08:55 PM

Re: Gagalicious
 
Ill just say this spot looked as good a spot as you could put out in the Gulf. It was about a 40 long ledge about 2 feet high and super undercut. And, it was surrounded by soft white sand. Perfect!
I thought I had died and gone to fish heaven but I later learned that fish heaven was to come later that day! ;)
This was definitely going to be a back dive spot until Seament and I heard the motors from the boat revving up overhead.
We hurried up and headed for the surface expecting trouble, only to pop up in really huge seas and lightning crackling all around! A nasty thunderstorm had snuck in on us fast. We got in the boat and had to beat it about 8 miles to get away from it! The rest of the day was spent searching for spots with mild success excluding JBY’s massive 23 pound hogfish! :thumps:

It was kind of funny as JBY was telling us all day that "this might be where we go for the Saint Pete Open so if you find a big fish you might want leave him till then.”
I don’t think any of us could have passed up that beautiful fish though.
Besides, Scouting has never worked in the past except to use as an excuse on the wife so I can go diving. :D

We poked around with mild succes the rest of the day and then we found “It”.

“it” turned out to be the spot you dream of and was the best spot with more big fish then I have ever seen in my life!

It was late in the day and Sea-ment and I were up to dive. As we started our descent the rocks started to come into view about 80 feet from the bottom. I slowed my descent to survey the area to see where exactly I wanted to go. It looked pretty fishy from 80 feet up.
A school of Amberjack started making there way towards us and I noticed that there were numerous 20-30 pound Gags coming along with them. I picked out the one closest to me and let a shaft fly.
I hit him good but he went to the bottom and started swimming in circles. I chased him to the bottom while loading a second shaft to finish him off.
Sea-ment was about forty feet above me and he later told me that when I shot that fish he saw big gags come flying in from the sand and out of the rocks like cockroaches! I finished off my first gag and started looking around at total chaos!
There were big hogs swimming around, Hundreds of AJ's including several 70-80 pounders swimming around and BIG gags EVERYWHERE. :eek: In my slightly narced state of mind I didnt know what to shoot first but knew this was an opportunity for a trophy as I saw several monsters scurrying here and there. I noticed Sea-ment had sunk a shaft into a big one as I could hear a shaft being pretzeled up under one of the rocks near me!.

The whole area looked like a bomb went off from all the frenzied fish and it was quickly turning into a silted out mess.
I knew I had to make the most of my 4 minute bottom time so I passed Up the 80 pound Amberjack that was practically trying to bully me off “his” rockpile.
I shot a hog real quick and then saw one of the big gags come out of one of the rocks. He gave me a good shot and I nailed him with a perfect shot to the head. It was lights out and later turned out to be my largest gag to date at 50 pounds! :thumps:
I reloaded and waited in nearly the same spot for another one to come out.
Just then I saw something huge moving in from my right side. It was the biggest rusty belly I’ve ever seen!
He was about one second away from being in range to take the shot when I saw a shaft come flying down from above the massive fish! :eek:
It looked Like a good shot but the fish spun around the other way and bolted up under one of the other rocks before I could squeeze another shot into him. :(
I could hear Sea-ment swearing and cussing through his regulator and looked down at my computer. It was saying get the hell out of there dude!

I looked at seament and watched for a minute as he felt around in the dust cloud trying to find his shaft that was firmly embedded in the monsters head. I showed him my computer and told him we had to go!
On the way up I was about 60 feet off the deck still watching the insane sea of frenzied fish flying around and watched as the biggest hog I have ever seen come in to investigate the commotion. I thought hard about going back down and gettting a shot in him and it took everything I had not to bolt back down to try and get him but decided it wouldnt be a smart move as I already had a pretty good deco obligation to do.
I couldnt believe what we had just seen and was actually a little dissapointed we didnt have more than we did!
But...After noticing Sea-ments gun now contained NO shafts and Mine had all the shafts I decided that It wasnt so bad after all. :D

Back on the boat it took about 10 minutes to calm down enough to describe where to go and what to look for to JBY and abdiver!

JBY and Abdiver did a fine job of cleanup and indicated later the big boy was under the ledge right where we said he was and was mortally wounded but not quite dead. JBY sunk a line shaft in him and dragged him out from way under the ledge.
He ended up topping out the scales at a hair under 70 pounds! They also got the other fish that seament had two shafts in and it turned out to be a 30+ pounder.
They said the rest of the area was just too silted out to see much of anything and the big AJ’s and hogs had all but dissapeared. We thought about backdiving it again after things had had a chance to settle down more but figured everyone was safe and we had enough fish for all our friends and co-workers to eat so lets call it a day! :thumps:

We all figured the Big gag was a team effort and would give both JBY and Sea-ment co honors as largest gag ever shot on the boat!
Of course later that evening we had to endure the constant nagging from wives and friends of "Why the heck didnt you guys leave those fish for the Saint Pete Open?! :bashhead:

RichT 07-31-2005 08:56 PM

Re: Gagalicious
 
1 Attachment(s)
JBY's Probable Saint Pete Open winner fish. Shot a couple weeks to early. :D
23lb hog

RichT 07-31-2005 08:59 PM

Re: Gagalicious
 
1 Attachment(s)
My big 50 pounder!

inletsurf 07-31-2005 09:01 PM

Re: Gagalicious
 
Damn! Nice fish Jason and Rich!!!!

RichT 07-31-2005 09:01 PM

Re: Gagalicious
 
1 Attachment(s)
And Finnaly, Sea-ment holdingthe gutted big boy.
By the way, heres a little trivia question for ya. Who was the inaugural Spearboard Open 1st place winner? Sea-ment.

SpearDiverTampa 07-31-2005 09:12 PM

Re: Gagalicious
 
Amazing Fish Guys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! New numbers are always sweet.
-Chris

fizisition 07-31-2005 09:13 PM

Re: Gagalicious
 
HOLY $hit

f94gator 07-31-2005 09:15 PM

Re: Gagalicious
 
Great report, Rich!

titaniumdiver 07-31-2005 09:26 PM

Re: Gagalicious
 
Nice Gag! Beautiful jobs guys!

Marcus 07-31-2005 09:52 PM

Re: Gagalicious
 
Saaaaaaaweeeeeeeet! Congrats Guys! :cool:

junior 07-31-2005 09:57 PM

Re: Gagalicious
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by RichTaylor
By the way, Sea-ment was the inagural Spearboard 1st place winner. ;)

Great god. Like you said...two weeks too early:D

Mobile Diver 07-31-2005 10:04 PM

Re: Gagalicious
 
Beautiful, just beautiful!! What a dive. What fish.

PatMyGreen 07-31-2005 10:44 PM

Re: Gagalicious
 
Fantastic, sounds like a perfect day to me! Outstanding fish.

HeadHunter 08-01-2005 05:13 AM

Re: Gagalicious
 
Awesome fish and trip! Congrats!


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