Sebastian Inlet Otherside Run - 8/3

[chummer]

Last week I helped a friend upgrade the radar on his Grady Marlin 300 and we took it out for a test run Friday. We cleared SI about 4:30 in the morning and ran into 3' whitecap chop all the way over. The only thing we could figure was that the recent front was drawing wind up from the south because the past week it's been dead calm over there.

Spent a good 4 hours heading over and even at 100 miles out, we couldn't find a temperature break. I was kicking myself for not checking temps before leaving, but it's been raining like hell all week here in Florida and I figured there wasn't going to be any good satellite passes. I checked today and did see one good pass in this afternoon which confirmed the warm water was pushed out way east.



We spun the radar anyway and started looking for birds. Found only about three packs in a radius of about 12 miles despite the whitecaps cluttering up the returns. We managed to pull a couple of skippies off the first pack, but nothing much else going on.

The wind started to calm down a bit and we could see out farther with the radar without whitecap clutter. Yay.

By about 11am, we decided to run north a bit to another pack and while looking it over to see if we wanted to fish it, we dragged a couple of speedies trying to see if this was skipjack city or not. Both lines go off and both fish pull hooks after about 5 seconds, but the second line gets hammered again and my Tiagra 30-wide is paying out line while we see if the other line will load up again. Nope, so we slow to idle and the reel is still dumping line. The angler clips the reel in and begins the fight. Since we didn't have all of our lines out, it was easy to clear and start running the fish down. The fish ended up sounding way deep with about 200 yds of line. We engaged full strike drag and planed him up after about 20 minutes and got him closer to the boat to see he was a nice yellowfin. He made a last dash for the motors, but the angler shoved the rod tip into the water and kept it clear. We head gaffed him and got him into the boat, where he proceeded to beat me to death. You can't see the welt I have today, but he slapped me a good one in the face with his tail. :'( But that's a beating I'll gladly take. This guy pulled the scale out to 65 pounds.



We reset and went back out after the pack and trolled for an hour, looking for this guy's buddies. Nothing. Nada. I can't remember what we did to draw bites back up - paying the fish gods, voodoo sacrifices, eating sandwiches, going #2 - but nothing seemed to work. That's how it goes in August over there - slow bites, but nice fish sometimes. Around 1pm, we're still doing figure eights and whatever near these birds and we get a triple hookup. In through the door comes two YFT's, one under the limit and the other 30" and about 12 pounds - into the box. The last rod is still paying line and we commence to the fight. He went deep, so we got back into planing mode and dragged him back up. I was training this captain on how to boat tuna and he did an outstanding job of circling the fish into gaffing range. Gaffed him, snapped shots, gutted him and into the box he went. Except someone forgot to tell the tuna he was dead, because he went berserk in the box and was pounding the lid and lifting the guy up who was holding the lid down. This guy measured out to 55 pounds. We decided to head back with our three fish and call it a day. It wasn't a fish slaughter, but we were happy with the trip and made it back to Telemar Marina by 1800 hours.





Despite the whitecaps earlier, the return trip was over glassy water. We made good time and a few of us actually got some sleep on the return. We discussed about return trips and we're seriously thinking about doing a long weekend out of Grand Cay.

[DIRTYFOOT2]

Nice report. Enjoy the tooners

[Relentless33]

Nice work. What kind of lure is that?

[WhItEoUt 23]

Niiice ! Way To Go

[Certifiable]

Nice work.
You are the only person that I know that has picked off a few YFT's during the daylite hours in the last 3 weeks. The water is hot and the fish are deep.
Sunset has been productive for a few of my friends, but that is a long way to run for 1.5 hours of fishing and a long run home in the dark.

A Rosies trip is probably the best option to maximize your fishing time at daybreak and dusk hours, and get you farther east to the colder water.

I am waiting until September for the last runs of the season, probably due a Rosies trip myself at the end of September.

BTW- Your Black speedster in the photo is due for retirement. Be carefull when buying the speedsters, we came a cross a batch last year that had bad welds on the welded hook rings. Lost at least 5 BIG fish due to the problem. We have been cutting off the welded rings and using heavy split rings in thier place for insurance, no failures to date.

[Yellow Dog]

Those are some good looking fish. Good job! You guys are eating well!

[Bait Washer]

Originally Posted by Certifiable

Nice work.

BTW- Your Black speedster in the photo is due for retirement. Be carefull when buying the speedsters, we came a cross a batch last year that had bad welds on the welded hook rings. Lost at least 5 BIG fish due to the problem. We have been cutting off the welded rings and using heavy split rings in thier place for insurance, no failures to date.

Had the same problem with the small speedsters.

Nice job.

[riskreward]

Excellent Job!!!!! Fished out of spanish last week a couple of afternoons Wed. and Thurs. with the family got plenty of bft one blue marlin and one nice yft about 65# But the yellowfin were the hardest Ive seen ! got the one on a blk and red ilander on the downrigger no luck on speedsters or mauraders or even tried those blades. buddy tells me even the ticket is using the green stick One fish at a time

[chummer]

The speedsters that you're looking at are only on their second trip and the paint seems to flake pretty easily. I'm going to try repainting them. I've also been breaking the welded rings, but I never thought about replacing them for added insurance.

But yes, it's one fish at a time and it takes a lot longer to fill the boxes.