Offshore Gulf of Mexico - June 8, 2005 - California Fishing

Wahoo! · 06-09-2005, 09:52 AM

I went on an offshore trip out of Galveston Bay yesterday. The destination was oil rigs and reefs 40-60 miles out. The trip out took about 2.5 hours. On our way out, the gulf didn't look too rough, but the boat they had is designed as a bay boat and runs really shallow so were were getting tossed around pretty good in 4-5ft swells. It was so bad, I started to feel a little seasick.

Once we got there, the swells had died down and everything was calm and flat with a slight breeze. This trip, I brought my own equipment since I didn't want to be limited to their rental gear. I brought my saltiga 20 w/ 30# line and my saltiga 30T with 40# line and 1 medium action rod rated at 20-40 pounds and upto 4 ounces of weight.

The boat provided squid bait and a few left over sardines (all dead) for bait and they gave you the option of purchasing a box of frozen sardines for $15.

I rigged my 30# setup with a reverse dropper loop and some squid and let it go. The water out there is only 50ft deep so it only took a short time to hit the bottom. As soon as I hit bottom, I was hooked up! Less than 30 seconds after I started fishing, I had my first fish, a 14 inch red snapper which I had to throw back (legal length on snapper is 16 inches). I was really surprised how hard this fish fought. I thought that it would have been much larger! I kept doing this for about an hour and got bit on pretty much every single drop!!! Unfortunately, all the fish were short. I was talking to the deckhand and he rigged me up with a carolina rig and lighter weight and told me to cast out, let it sink for a few seconds, then put it in gear and let it drift down. He said that a lot of times the legal snapper are in the middle of the water column. I tried this and I hooked an 18 incher!!! He also had me bait up with one of the sardines and do the same thing. A couple minutes later I had a huge bite that peeled off some drag and I got bit off. The captain on the upper deck was watching and said I had hooked a shark of some kind.

I soon figured out that the sardines were the way to go and ended up buying a box for $15. That ended up being the smartest decision I made all day!!! I soon limited out on red snapper (limit is 4) and asked the deckhand what I should fish for now. He gave me a wire leader and told me to flyline the sardines for kingfish, sharks, and lings (cobia).

Soon after that, I got a HUGE hit and my drag starts peeling off faster than I've ever seen it go before!!! The fish took me down one side of the boat and then back up the other direction. After about a 7 minute fight, I landed my first kingfish!!! We gaffed that fish and put it in the cooler. I couldn't believe how fast it was and how hard it fought! I was talking to the deckhand and asked how much they charged for cleaning one of those things and he told me that they don't do it on the boat and I have to talk to the guys at the dock, but they usually charge $1 - $2 per small fish and $10 to clean large fish like kingfish! Way more expensive than I thought it was going to be. I didn't have enough cash on me to still eat lunch, tip the crew and keep more fish, so the rest of the day was going to be catch and release

The next fish I caught was a 5ft blue shark. They are different from the ones you guys have in CA and they have to be 6ft to keep here so we released it.

After that, the captain decided to take us out further to a reef where there's been a lot of action recently. I took this opportunity to switch out my SA20 with my SA30T so I could fish the heavier 40# line.

Once we got there I bait up and thow out my sardine on the wire leader. All at once, I was hooked up, they guy next to me was hooked up, and a guy a few feet down was hooked up. We had a triple hookup on kingfish!!! We stopped right in the middle of a school of them and it was on!

When we got them to the boat, the guy next to me had a HUGE one! It ended up being the biggest fish on the boat weighing in at about 40 pounds. Mine was about half that and the other guys was about the same as mine. They gaffed the other 2 and released mine. The limit on kingfish here is 2 and I'm glad I didn't take anymore. There's no way I could keep all that fish in the freezer!

Anyway, that's pretty much the way the rest of the afternoon went. I caught and released 3 more kingfish after that and landed some other various fish like a rainbow runner, some more snapper, and some kind of fish that I can't remember what they called it. I had a great day and will definitely be out there again soon!!!

Let me know when you guys want to come visit!

PS - I'll take more pics next time. I was just too busy catching fish to take more pics

Local Rookie · 06-09-2005, 10:43 AM

Nice Kingfish! Sounds like a blast in Gulf of Mexico. How much were they charging 1/2 day and 3/4 day? How much did that Kingfish weight in the picture? Thanks for the report.

Wahoo! · 06-09-2005, 10:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Local Rookie

Nice Kingfish! Sounds like a blast in Gulf of Mexico. How much were they charging 1/2 day and 3/4 day? How much did that Kingfish weight in the picture? Thanks for the report.

They only have 4 hour trips and 12 hour trips. The 8 hour trips are very rare. They charge $25 for the 4 hour trip and either $70 or $80 for the 12 hour trip depending on which landing you go out of (only 2 in Galveston). I have no idea how much the kingfish weighed. My scale is still packed

PlatinumHooks · 06-09-2005, 11:06 AM

OH HELLLLLLL YESSSSSSS!!! Nice King Mack!!!! Good job Jon...your first Kingfish. My first one was smaller than that.

How long did it take to land it?

Oh it's "on and poppin' " now.

Great Report!

OBTW, keep rockin' that BOOYAA fishing shirt out there; show 'em how the West Coast boys do it.

Wahoo! · 06-09-2005, 11:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tony"PltnmHooks"Z.

OH HELLLLLLL YESSSSSSS!!! Nice King Mack!!!! Good job Jon...your first Kingfish. My first one was smaller than that.

How long did it take to land it?

Oh it's "on and poppin' " now.

Great Report!

OBTW, keep rockin' that BOOYAA fishing shirt out there; show 'em how the West Coast boys do it.

It took about 7 minutes to land that one. The first one took the longest since I wasn't really sure what the fish was going to do. After this one though, I tightened down the drag a little and put more pressure on the others.

I actually had a few comments on the shirt. People liked it. One thing that I thought was strange - all the deckhands asked me about the saltiga. None of them have ever seen one before! Nobody on that boat was fishing with anything other than Penns or mid range shimanos...

PlatinumHooks · 06-09-2005, 11:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wahoo!

It took about 7 minutes to land that one. The first one took the longest since I wasn't really sure what the fish was going to do. After this one though, I tightened down the drag a little and put more pressure on the others.

I actually had a few comments on the shirt. People liked it. One thing that I thought was strange - all the deckhands asked me about the saltiga. None of them have ever seen one before! Nobody on that boat was fishing with anything other than Penns or mid range shimanos...

7 minutes? not bad.

As far as Booyaa goes, the Tex Gulf anglers probably haven't heard of Booyaa Sport Fishing Apparel for the most part. They may have seen it in a magazine before, but that's about it. Florida, California, Oregon, Hawaii, Washington, and Alaska (oh, and Mexico) carry Booyaa stuff, they haven't really made it into TX yet.

Now when you say the deck hands hadn't seen the Saltiga before; do you mean they'd never even heard of that model

????? or they had just never seen one in person before??

Cuban_Fish · 06-09-2005, 12:11 PM

awesome report, and way to go on the King's. Did anybody catch any grouper on this trip?

steve33fish · 06-09-2005, 12:54 PM

Hey Jon, How's the weather?

oubearjinx · 06-09-2005, 01:04 PM

Awesome Trip man.. Hey what is your new contact info. I am sure I will be down there by July to party with you!

Wahoo! · 06-09-2005, 01:35 PM

Tony - They hadn't seen or heard of the saltiga. I haven't met any tackle ho's like I'm used to. I have a feeling they don't get a lot of guys with that kind of gear on the open party boats. Most hardcore guys probably get a private charter, but I didn't want to spend all that cash for 1 day.

Cuban - Unfortunately, we didn't see any groupers on this trip. We did catch 1 blackfin tuna though which was a cool surprise.

Steve - The weather has been hot. 90s most days with humidity up to around 70%. Nothing too bad yet. Every day I've been able to go outside and do stuff without having any issues with the heat. Out on the water is actually really nice, especially when there's a breeze. It's definitely an adjustment to wear shorts 24 hours a day. It's 80 degrees by 5am.

oubearjinx - Let me know when you're headed over here. They tell me that the fishing is wide open like this all summer long! I'll PM you with my new contact info.

Wahoo! · 06-09-2005, 01:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tony"PltnmHooks"Z.

7 minutes? not bad.

They really weren't fighting for all that long. Once their initial run was out of the way, it was just a matter of making my way up and/or down the rail until the fish came to the boat. Plus, I was fishing 40# string after the first one so I was able to put quite a bit of pressure on the fish. That one in the pic is probably 20# or less anyway.

I did however get taken down into the spectra by one of the bigger ones. The fish just took off straight out and didn't stop until I was in the spectra on my 30T. Lots of fun!

Local Rookie · 06-09-2005, 02:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wahoo!

It's definitely an adjustment to wear shorts 24 hours a day.

So does this mean the girls in Houston, Texas prefers to wear less...?

sharkbait7 · 06-09-2005, 02:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Local Rookie

So does this mean the girls in Houston, Texas prefers to wear less...?

if they do i'm moving to Texas lol

sharkbait7 · 06-09-2005, 02:24 PM

awesome report, sounds like awesome fishing

Local Rookie · 06-09-2005, 04:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sharkbait7

if they do i'm moving to Texas lol

That was how it was at my high school and at the University.