May 2005

May has arrived as well as some big sharks. Pete, Jim, Stone and Max from Pennsylvania got the month started off right catching a couple of amberjacks, several triggerfish and the first shark of the month, a monster black tip! Way to get the month started guys! Our afternoon trip was with Brent, JT, Brian, emily and Janet from Tulsa, Oklahoma and they continued the great start to May by catching several kingfish and 3 golden amberjacks. The 2nd, Monte from Canada joined us for a beautiful day of fishing and landed several kingfish and amberjacks. On the 3rd the fishing slowed down but Lisa, John, Chucfk and Mike from Indiana and Salt Lake City, Utah still caught dolphin, a wahoo and then we dropped on a wreck and they landed an amberjack. The morning of the 6th Katherine, Michael, Susan and Robert down from Wisconsin came onboard and caught an amberjack on a deep wreck drop and then they landed a monster of a warsaw grouper, everybit of 75 pounds! What a catch! Our afternoon trip was with Kurt, Anne and Alan from Wilmington, North Carolina and they caught and released 4 amberjacks. Fishing picked up on the 7th. We spent the morning fishing with Bill and Will from Texas and they had a good trip catching 3 amberjacks, 4 kingfish, 2 porges and they they topped the trip with a nice sailfish! In the afternoon Brian, John, Wendy, Craig, and Sue from Denver, Colorado joined us and they landed a huge great grey hammerhead! What a shark...awesome!!!!On the 8th we fished with Eric, Roger, Ryan, and Chris from Florida and they caught kingfish, bonito's and amberjacks. Our next trip was on the 12th with Ryan, and Joe from Connecticut and they enjoyed catching kingfish, amberjacks and dolphin. On the 13th Bill, Dave, and Mary from Florida fished with us and caught an amberjack and several bonito's. On the 14th Joe, Bob, Kenny and Bernie from Pennsylvania and Florida joined us and caught bonito's and amberjacks. Mike and chris from New York and Florida joined us on the 17th and they caught kingfish and amberjacks then on the 18th Alan, Dan, Kathy, Keith, Scott and Alan from Tennessee, California, Texas, Wisconsin and New York came onboard and caught some amberjacks and then landed a nice hammmerhaed shark! On the 19th Ron, Ed and Davie fronm New Jersey and Pennsylvania fished on the Hooked Up and they caught an amberjack and several kingfish. The afternoon of the 20th Jim and Mike from cleveland fished with us and had a bit of bad luck but they did catch a triggerfish. The morning of the 21st, Paul, Marian, Jeff and Louise from Ohio joined us and caught 4 amberjacks and then that afternoon Ryan, Mark, Brian, Bruce and John from Florida went out and they caught amberjacks and bonito's. The morning of the 22nd Brent, Terri, Karen and Stan from here in Florida joined us and they caught a barracuda, amberjack and a kingfish. The afternoon trip was with Jim and he caught an amberjack, a barracuda and 10 snappers. Preston and Debbie from Raleigh, North Carolina joined us for 2 days of fishing on the 24th and 25th and they caught barracuda's on the troll and then amberjacks on a couple of different wrecks. On the 26th, Mark and Kelli from Pennsylvania fished with us and they also landed a couple of barracuda's. The 27th brought Paul, Mike, Brad and Buddy from Florida and Virginia on board and they caught a barracuda and a nice 25 pound dolphin. Our last trip in Ft. Lauderdale was on the 29th with Robert, Raman, Bobby and Don from Arizona and Indiana and they caught kingfish. On the morning of the 30th we headed out of Ft. Lauderdale for a 3 day fishing trip to Bimini in the Bahamas with a repeat customer Mr. Clint Robertson who brought along his father, Lacey, his brother Clay and Barry a close friend of the family.Well on the first day we headed across and the weather was perfact the seas were calm and the sun was shinning. We ran most of the way but as we started to get closer we slowed down and started trolling. But we never did manage to get any fish in the boat we did get a couple bites but we never see what there were. The following day we got a early star. So we started trolling south our destanation was a little lsland called Ocean Kay about 18 miles south of Bimini. We did catch a buch of baracudes but we never did catch any wahoo or dolphin. So I knew it was time to make some changes so we stsrted doing some deep drops for yellow eye snappers.We were doing preaty good we were catching 2 to 3 at a time but after about 1 hour of 6 guys watching 1 electric reel catching these fish I could see everone was getting preaty board with it. So I knew it was time for some hands on full contact fishing.So we anckered up in about 85 feet of water and started chuming up the waters.It took about 20 min than the triggerfish mackrals baracudes showed up.About 20 minutes later the yellow tail snappers showed up. Now everone was haveing a good time catching fish and giving each other a hard time and saying that there fish was bigger than the other. Things really started looking up.It had to be about 150 degrees out there and I decided the timeing was perfact for my big surprice a tupperware full of ice cold water mellon.(I got to say I think I could have charged them $100 a peice and they would have payed it). Well things were going very well at this point and Mike and I decided to go inside the boat for a little AC and a little R and R when we noticed that Clay had been fighting a fish for a long time.We figured it had to be a small shark or a big baracuda or something like that.But we figured we should go out and see if we could lend a hand. When I looked over the back of the boat I could not belive my eyes I was looking at the biggest yellow tail snapper I have ever seen. I quickly opened the tuna door and Mike grabed a big dip net we had on the boat and ther it was the bigest yellow tail I have ever laid my eyes on. 29 inches to be exact.We never did weigh the fish but I would have guessed 7 to 8 pounds. We later found out that the stste record was 8 pounds and that the world record was 11 pounds. But we caught it in the Bahams and it was no where near 11 pounds. How ever you look at it it was a great catch great going Clay.I will get a picture on Hooked Up,s photo gallery.When it was all said and done we all poped open some beers and headed back to Bimini. On our last day we decided to troll the north end of Bimini looking for Clinton,s wahoo we thought we had him on and we thought it was a very large one but it turned out to be a monster amberjack. Thats right a monster amberjack on the troll and we were going about 9 knots when it hit our double hooked ballyhoo. I estmated the fish to weigh about 70 pounds.Well the time had come to start heading back for Fort Laurdale so we started high speed trolling about 12 knots when there was a big explosion on the right long bait it turned out to be a real nice dolphin. When we finally got the fish in the boat it turned out to be a 51 inch dolphin about 40 to 45 pounder. Nice going Lacey. Barry still had not caught his bluemarlin and Clintion still had not caught his wahoo but we had to make tracks we had heard on the vhf raido that their was some heavy thunder stormes between us and Fort Laurdale. We had no idea hou bad these stormes were but we were about to find out. It was so bad that I could not see the front of the boat. And the waves went from 3 inces 5 to 7 foot waves in about 30 min. Well I guess we had used up all our calm weather good luck the 2 days earler. But all in all we made it though and made it home with little damage done to the Hooked Up. Guys once again I would like to thank you 4 guys for a great time and I hope we can do it again sometime soon. Captians Taco and Mike