My buddy Nathan, his friend Robert and I hit the gulf again with the yaks. we really didn't have a specific target and didn't plan to keep anything unless it was a giant Mahi or something awesome.
we started our troll out to some reefs around 5:45. picked up some good size blue runners for bait and i had a new X rap 15 in dorado color. i had two hits... each hit came when i had stopped to catch more bait or adjust something. missed both somehow. then i came across what looked like a trash can on the bottom in 58ft of water with a bunch of marks around it. dropped the sabiki down and immediately went bendo! pulled up an 18" red snapper! :lol: just as i got it to the yak my rod with that X rap gets slammed! i let the snapper hang by the yak while i fight this fish. felt like a bonito or small tuna by the constant shakes but unfortunately the rod tip had cracked and it tore through my 50lb braid main line...
great way to find that out. anyways, got the snapper released and dropped back down looking for hardtails or blue runners and came up with another snapper around the same size!
marked the spot and moved on. trolled a blue runner on a duster to the first reef for nothing, although Nathan got a big king yak side and lost it.
we fished this reef for about 4 hours. caught several snapper, all legal but all went back, then Nathan drops down a big live blue runner with his new torium 50 and says "i hope i get spooled or break this rod!", about 3 mins later he goes bendo on something big and its dragging him sideways! hook pulled after a good minute battle but it got our minds racing. I quickly grabbed a blue runner about 10" long and pinned it on a 6/0 hook with a 2oz slider to the hook, 100lb mono leader and 65lb braid with my saltist LD50... i wasn't going to lose this one!
drop it down to the bottom and reel up about 15ft then wait. drift off the structure and my FF is reading sand bottom with no marks... drift another 50 yards and i see a worm, then another, 3 worms on the FF and i go bendo! starts taking drag and i turn into it and it pulls me a good 10 ft up current before i get it nose up. the battle from there only took about 45 seconds and I had a nice Amber jack. about 30-32" fork. just over legal but the season is closed till July something. back it goes and i pin on a dead blue runner tat i had cut the tail off earlier, send it down and instant hookup! another AJ about the same size! 8) quickly released. the AJ's start blowing up around us so i threw the heavy iron at them. didn;t get an AJ but i got a huge blue runner about 16" long, hooked a black fin tuna, got it yak side and lost it at the last second!
and had several almost hook ups but couldn't seem to get them to stick!
Robert with an AJ. Looks around 30”+
around 1130am, 2 AJ for me, several red snapper, a few lost fish and several more AJ and reds between Nathan and Robert we decided to head back in, especially since we were in the middle of a 4-5ft swell and the wind was howling to the west.
I pinned that big blue runner on a rig i made with two 10/0 J hooks and a big pink and purple skirt for trolling bluefish and macks for ... well anything.
trolled it a good mile and something decided it looked tasty... got slammed! drag screaming and white water everywhere! saw big blueish green flashes just below the surface and all i could think was "Mahi"....oh damn... "MAHI!!!" i yelled. as its crashing on the surface and still pulling drag. it dove down and i got the yak turned so now it was just pulling me instead of drag. got over it and realized it was a shark...
just my luck.
there was a thread on a Pensacola forum about how to land a shark on the yak. one guy, i think jokingly, suggested to just throw it on your lap and everyone thought he was crazy and the majority threw out some crazy ideas... well you know what had to happen...
i got it along the yak and we threw a tail rope on it, unhooked it and.....
he went just over 6ft.
Promptly released after the pics and we moved on. I didn’t have anymore baits to troll so I set out a small crank bait with a duster about a foot up the line to see if it would add to the attraction.. After three trips of using this rig, I don’t think it work… as we were trolling along, Robert took a wave from the side that decided to white cap as soon as he got to the top… he flipped. Lost two rods and two tackle boxes. The one time he wasn’t wearing his pfd or had leashes on everything. The only thing that saved his spinner was the sabiki that wrapped around him. I cleared my trolling rod, jumped in and helped him flip the yak and get back in.
After that we headed for shore and landed. Hit up chik-fil-A for some food then went east to a shark spot. Got there and the blue fish and lady fish were swarming the beach! Threw the croc and nailed 3 blues and a few lady fish then we launched the yaks in search of kings for bait. Got outside the second bar and the bonita were everywhere! They didn’t want to hit anything but a small rapala (2”) and a white pompano jig (really tiny bucktail). I got two and Nathan got one. They were moving really fast and it was hard to keep on them. The back fin tuna also showed up! A bunch in the 15lb range were doing their formations, riding the waves and chasing bait. Couldn’t get them, or really anything to hit when they showed up. I trolled a hard tail on a duster rig to some deeper water and hooked up with a black tip. It went about 4ft but with the double treble rig and it getting dark I decided as soon as I hooked it we were going to shore. Played it a bit and landed on shore. Landed her and got a little kid to take a pic with her then let her go. All in all it was a fun day!
Nathan took a lot more pics but he sucks at getting them up on FB. I’ll post them as they come.