So I needed to shake down the Boma to see if it would run great and get all bogged down again or just start out all bogged out. I told Steve to grab one big rod and two smaller bass/bay rods in case we couldn't get out the inlet.
The boat ran great and we decided to B-Line it to LJ. We didn't want to go offshore, but we figured we would play around a bit near the Kelp. The bass blitzing, but few committed. Lots of chasers though!
Then Steve hooks something big. I didn't hear him say it was a yellow, but by then it was tangled deep in the kelp and we tried a dozen times to get it out, but I couldn't get my motor all tangled up in the mats and eventually it busted his line. The yellows made a quick flurry of hitting the plastic, but the weed guard did a good job at keeping them from getting hooked for the most part.
We moved out and started slow trolling macks. We made about 20 macks for bait and needed to find some yellows away from the kelp. Instead we found Fur Bags that would not leave us alone. After a half a dozen baits, we needed to act quick since the sun was getting low in the sky. We decided to drop down looking for ling or deep water yellows. The entire time listening to boats striking out for tuna and some boats laying the wood to them! One boat even hooked two dolphin which kicked his ass apparently. The water here off LJ was 72.2 degrees! WOW!
Well, secondary target species acquired!
The ling were legals but had trouble choking down the big macks. We had many raked baits but decided to just use up the baits we had. Steve finally hooked up after missing a few nicer bites and I got a killer sunset pic of him during the fight.
It wasn't what we thought... or what we wanted, but it was a toad grouper!
We decided to start heading in and load up on macks again. We were making great time when my motor just died to a slow 7 knots. Man, I'm thinking it's vapor lock, but we had 4.5 miles to get to the inlet and another 2 miles back to South Shores. It was a long ass SLOW trip back. We did manage to pull the boat as the fire works were going off, so we had some excitement, but the ramp was filled with tourists there to watch. Well, still need to ID and fix the problem, but it was a good day on the water considering what we had to deal with. Heard of the GIANT Bluefin up off CB... Guy sounded pretty pleased with himself.
Thanks for reading and until next tide....
