“We’re gonna need a bigger boat…..”
Scott, Rick G, Paul V and I went out Wednesday through Saturday. The forecast was a little concerning on the back end, but seas were 1′ as we cleared the jetties and made our way to a spot about 135Nm SE of Galveston. Because snapper season is closed we were only targeting deep drop species, and possibly tuna on this trip.
When we arrived at about 8:30am Thursday, the fish were still asleep. After changing locations a couple of times we finally tried the southeast slope of the mound in about 850′ of water. On the first drop we had a double hookup with Paul landing a nice yellowedge and Rick a tilefish. Before Rick could unhook his fish, Paul was hooked up again. Ended up with several more tiles before starting another drift, this time in about 950′. After no success there, we moved back into 850′ and immediately began double hookups again.
We ended up with 3 nice yellowedge and about 15 tiles in the box before we decided to give the swords a shot in about 1450′ of water. We soaked the squid for an hour with no signs of a bite, but when we brought in the bait about half of the squid had been nibbled off.
After going back to deep dropping and putting a couple more tiles in the box, we trolled on out to Magnolia. We arrived about an hour before dark but saw no signs of life other than a couple of overachieving barracudas as we circled the rig with the billfish baits. Once the sun set, we started dropping the jigs and found the blackfins to be very cooperative. Only had a couple of them cut in half by barracuda, but after close to an hour of chunking with no hookups we finally decided that it was time to head back to the NW.
Daylight on Friday found us at some of my previously noted deep drop spots SE of Elvers Bank. The bite started out a little slow, but improved as the sun got higher in the sky. Towards mid-day, it was instant bite on both rods at almost every spot we tried. Found lots of solid tiles, along with more yellowedge grouper and even a nice snowy. On one drop, Paul boated a double of good yellowedge.
About 4pm, I was on the deep drop rod bringing up another tilefish when the rod tip got jerked almost to the water several times before the tilefish seemed to be gone. A few minutes later, Scott got a bite and started up before the reel groaned to a complete stop. At first it was as though he was snagged on the bottom, but the bottom seem to be slowly moving. We were only able to get the fish halfway up before the reel would go no further. We began planing the fish and made good headway until about 30 meters showed on the reel. It took a half dozen planing attempts before we were finally able to move the fish another 100′. By pulling the line onto the reel like they do on “Wicked Tuna” we were able to get the fish close enough to make out a shape. What we saw were two large pectoral fins with a 6′ wingspan, and a long, sleek body. The tail was a dead giveaway… we had hooked a large Thresher Shark. We finally managed to get it on the surface where we could get an accurate gauge on its size. Simply stated it appeared to be 15’+. The tail was 5-6′ by itself. After taking a few photos and videos, Scott cut the leader. This might have been a new state record for electric reel, but our boat was not big enough to get it all in the cockpit. We’re gonna need a bigger boat….
At this point we decided to call it a day and pointed the bow back to the NW. When we got to Peanut Rock, we decided to give Paul a shot at a large AJ. We stopped on a hump I had found years earlier. At this spot, if you dropped a live bait you were guaranteed a 90-100 lb AJ. We didn’t have a live baits so we tried jigs but everything we dropped was immediately bitten off by Barracudas. After finally switching to a wire leader we managed to thin down the Barracudas so that we could get a bait down. I first dropped a chicken rig and managed to catch an 18″ sand tile. We put it on a large circle hook and positioned it about 30′ off the bottom. Within a minute or two, Paul was hooked up. As often happens with big AJ’s, he never had a chance. The fish headed straight down and cut the line on the reef below.
It was time for steaks on the grill as the sun set on glassy seas. Arrived back at the jetties about 7:30am Saturday. We were shorthanded this trip and had two large boxes of fish, so I was demoted to deckhand and had to help Rick clean fish. A couple of hours later, with the appropriate libations in hand, we celebrated the end of another great trip on a great boat.
Next trip is two weeks away. Till then…
Capt. Stout