Three Days with Buffalo Burgers – Orange Beach, Gulf Shores 5-3-2012

May 20, 2012 in Alabama, Deep Sea Fishing, Dolphin, Fishing Report, Grouper, Gulf Shores, Orange Beach, Sportsman Marina, Tuna, Wahoo

Three day fishing trips aren’t the normal overnight trip if all you want is just Tuna Fish and maybe some Dolphin (Mahi-Mahi). With only six anglers on board we headed out on a Thursday afternoon for a three night, three day trip. It’s not normal to leave that early in the afternoon and then run all night, but when you have three days to do it in, you just don’t need to get in a hurry. We left Orange Beach from Sportsman Marina around four pm and headed south around 10 knots. The seas were between 3-5 ft. with an occasional 4-6 ft. coming out of the south east with a 15-20 knot wind. I know it sounds bad and it was but this was actually better conditions than what they said it was going to be. For the first five miles or so out of the pass it was pretty rough and then it spread out and got a little smaller which made the ride tolerable but not comfortable at all. We just knuckled down and dug in for a slow ride and before you knew it we found ourselves in the dark and the boat wasn’t rocking near as much, Thank the Lord. That was pretty much the worst of the whole trip and it was behind us now. It got nicer and nicer for the next two days till it was as slick as a mill pond with hardly a breeze of air.

We traveled out at night for around eight hour s till we came to one of the offshore rigs that usually hold good fish so we stopped and checked it for some sign of life by Jigging for Tuna under the lights. The rig didn’t show much on the fish finder but we tried it any way and ended up catching one Black Fin Tuna. So, we headed on to the next one further out about 15 miles. Now it’s around 3 am in the morning and everyone is unconscious, except me. Once we got some coffee in us, it was game on! First line out, “Fish On!” We ended up catching a couple of huge Yellow Fin Tuna on live bait and chunk fishing. The fish bit all day pretty steady, our problem was keeping a fresh and lively angler on the business end of the rod, seems that the ride out and the long hours of the night took its toll on the crew. One of the best parts of these trips is the meals on the Big Green Egg. These guys have some buffalo Hamburger and I’d never tried any before. “Delicious!” Being the red meat guy that I am, that was awesome, not to mention the Prime Sirloin another fellow brought from Brazil like they serve at “Fogo de Chao” original restaurants. We ate like kings for three days. Sausage on the grill for breakfast, Buffalo burgers for lunch, rib-eye steaks for dinner, and like a good deckhand does, we had some cookies and cream ice cream for desert that he brought just to make sure we had all of the comforts of home, you know!

We wrapped up our trip with some 4-5 lb Mingo’s and a limit of 40-50 lb Amberjack to go along with a box full of Yellow Fin Tuna, Black Fin Tuna, Skip Jack Tuna and a couple of Wahoo in the 40-50 lb range. Yes, we did catch some huge Gag Grouper which do not open until July 1rst. and we properly ventilated and released them after taking some great pictures. It turned out to be a great trip for everyone, even the couple of guys that didn’t see daylight for about 36 hours. They have already booked a trip in the fall for another overnight Tuna trip.

Party Boat Fishing in Orange Beach, Gulf Shores and Perdido Key

April 19, 2012 in Alabama, Fishing Report, Gulf Shores, Mingo, Orange Beach, Perdido Pass, Tuna, Wahoo, Walk-on Fishing

Party Boat Fishing in Orange Beach and Gulf Shores on the Emerald Spirit.

Today we had a six hour party boat walk-on trip. The weather was a little over cast this morning with a good breeze out of the north, along with a 2-3 ft. swell out of the south southeast. We left at our usual time of departure at 8:00 a.m. and went out to the area we fish around 20 miles on the natural bottom or rocks of coral. On our way we noticed that there was a lot of the sargasso grass on the beach and in the water. Some of it made up real nice grass lines which hold bait and then draws in other fish like dolphin, Wahoo, tuna, king mackerel and other top water fish. Wouldn’t you know it didn’t take long and there were reports from other fishermen that they had caught some black fin tuna on the weed lines while trolling out to their fishing holes. We didn’t seem to get a line out to troll, but we did get a drift line out when we stopped to fish. The mingo’s and white snapper were biting real well. After fishing a couple of places and moving around we got a big bite on the drift line and a big fish on a two hook rig at the same time. Not knowing what either fish were till the one on the two hook rig popped up did we know we had two black fin tuna on at once. I guess you could say the fellow with the two hook rig applied too much pressure and lost that one but we did manage to get the other one in the boat. As Murphy’s Law would have it the same fellow who lost the first one, hooked a second one before they got the one on the spinning rod in and he lost the second fish he hooked as well. It was pretty exiting the for several minutes to say the very least, one person going around the boat with a spinning rod and another in the back hooking up and losing them faster than you could tell what was going on. Nevertheless, we are grateful to get the one we did. Now I can’t wait till tomorrow, we’ll be ready.

Wounded Warriors Charter Fishing Trip

February 23, 2012 in Action Charter Service, Alabama, Bull Shark, Fishing Report, Gulf of Mexico, Orange Beach, Saltwater Fishing, Wahoo, Wounded Warriors Project

Wounded Warrior Deep Sea Fishing Trip

We were fortunate enough this year to be asked to participate in the effort to give back to our soldiers who have been injured, and proudly said yes to the opportunity to take a few out for an outstanding day of deep sea fishing on the Emerald Spirit. Our day started like all the others; get down to the boat early and catch live bait, make sure all of the tackle was ready as well as the boat. The Crew is ready all the time, especially today because they know how important this is to everyone involved. They also know I was going to go to some of my very best holes in the Gulf.

We had a couple of sponsors pay for the Wounded Warrior Project to bring these guys out with us today. It is this kind of dedication as well as the dedication of our troops that really got to me so before we ever left the dock in Orange Beach I gathered everybody in the cabin for our safety meeting and proceeded to share with them my plans for the day. I explained how we normally fish and how I wanted to fish today, which is out of our norm somewhat. I call it “Hero or Zero” fishing. We basically do what you never do and that is go to your poor holes or ones that just don’t have much on them. Then we use the biggest bait you’ve ever seen, so big it would choke your average monster fish. I know, sounds crazy, Huh?

The way I see it, you will probably bomb out and not get a bite at all, BUT IF YOU DO! OH YEAH! Well we didn’t do too well in the Hero or Zero department so we just went to some of my 5 year old virgin fishing holes where the 25 pounders swim around on top and bite like a bass hitting a June bug! We didn’t keep anything less that around 20 pounds or so, and the water was real muddy. We did put out the drift line and finally got a bite, Wow, a 53 pound Wahoo. We also caught an 8 foot Bull Shark and everyone got to pull on him a while. Once everyone was tired I was told to take it in.

As we headed for home one of the warriors of the trip who had fished his tail off all day turned to me and said, “I’m sore all over!” and I thought, what a good job I did putting them on some big fish. Then I talked to one of the sponsors and told him what the soldier said and he explained to me, “You know that 80 % of his bones in his chest, shoulders, arms and back were broken when an IUD blew him up?” All I could say was Oh my God! You would have never known, he fished like he never had a problem and will most likely be stoved up for a week or so getting over the trip, yet all of the guys thanked me personally and that I’ll remember for the rest of my life. Hopefully, we can do this again for our veterans. Thank you for coming!