Water Damage Seabass Report 4-27

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Dave/ Water Damage is too busy to post a thread himself so he axed me to post one for him.

We left his canalfront crib at Oh-Dark Hundred and made our way to the inlet where we saw it was Hawaii Five-O all the way across. Tide was going out, winds were from the east and it was stacking up. Thank God I'd wore my good foulweather jacket and bathing suit because I took about 5 bucketfuls of seawater slammed into my chest as we made our way out the inlet. Oh that's right, I forgot to say that we were on his 28 yr old 18 foot Action Craft flats boat!

Once we got out to the reef dropoff at 200 foot we trolled two rods north to our seabass spot but didn't get any hits.

We set up for our first deepdrop and Ba-Bing! got a nice fat male seabass, all turqoise and lit up. The current was ripping at 4kts so each power-drift was fast and covered a lot of ground so it took us a while to motor back to start over again. But soon we dialed in where the fish were and we were bringing up 3,4 and 5-baggers. Dave outfished me in terms of quantity but I also got a nice Beeliner and a Speckled Hind Grouper so I got the quality fish. It all evened out in the long run.

Despite venting & releasing about 15 Seabass, we got our 15 fish per person limit by early afternoon and headed back to de-saltify ourselves and clean the boat and the fish. Final tally was 30 Seabass at 2.0-2.5 lbs each, one 17" Speckled Hind and one 16" Beeliner.

Despite getting submarined all day long with salt spray and greenwater it was fun fishing with Dave offshore on his flats boat. He really knows how to fish that boat effectively even in sporty weather conditions. He's an anal-retentive engineer so everything on the boat is topnotch, laid out nicely and well-maintained. Even his gauges and throttles are Gaffrig!



Here's me fishing on Dave's "fighting chair". It actually worked out well because I could put the bentbutt into one of the cooler's drinkholders so it wouldn't smash my nuts.


Here's Smilin' Dave back at Water Damage World Galactic Headquarters with a dockload of fish.



I'm too lazy to post the rest of the half-dozen pics so click on here and mosey on over...
The 100 Fathom Fishing Club


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[WaterDamage]

Thanks for posting Mark, and thanks for showing me how to lay into the seabass. Saturday was the best I've ever done in terms of quality-size seabass.

One correction, though: The boat is a mere 22 years old.

I don't remember any wetness heading out the inlet, but then again I was concentrating and 'in the zone'.

Never had several squid and squid parts wind up in the bilge before either. I'm thinking of replacing my Rule 800 with a macerator pump!

[WhItEoUt 23]

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WHiteout, here's another pic. This was just one of many four-baggers and if I recall correctly, Water Damage got himself one or two five-baggers. The bite was that hot. It was the fishing bonanza of a lifetime.




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[kapoc]

....good catch their lots of fun when the pile on the multi hook rigs

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Yeah Mike, you're right. When he was getting those 4 and 5-baggers you shoulda seen Water Damage's face go first from delight to surprise then worry as his pole bent almost double with all those frisky BSB's on it.

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[Catch-All]

I forgot to mention to y'all that every time Dave had the fightin' chair up front, I was sitting in the back.....



....steering the boat and telling him what to do!

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