Date: Sunday August 25, 2002 Fish: Seabass & Fluke
#: 10/2 Largest: seabass:3 lbs & Fluke:7.14 lbs!
Location: Cholera
Crew: The Duke of Puke & Ronnie-the-dog
It was my first day back from Aruba and we had no real plans so we decided to keep it simple. Fluke. Bob & I decided to grab the bucket of clams that lives in my bait frezer just in case. We ran around a bit and watched other boats not catch any fluke. With all the rain the night before it must have put things off. So we ran to Cholera and drifted a bit for seabass. Fishing a self imposed 13 inch limit, we had penty of action. About 50/50 keepers to throw-backs. Plenty of quality fish and a ton in the 12 to 13 inch range. But we had plenty with our 13" minimum. Then, at around 1:00, we decided to try a bit for fluke. We ran west and met up with Artie. He was dry for about an hour so he headed east and we went a bit further west. Bob had the first fish. A respectable 3.5 pounder. Then, a short while later, I had a hit but missed, so I free-spooled for over 30 seconds and when the line came tight I felt weight. Good weight. I reeled in very carefully and slowly taking my time. In a few minutes, we could see this enormous shadow appear. I stepped back and let Bob do his thing with the net. The next thing I know this whopper was flapping around on the deck. It had stollen my main bait (1st hit) then engulfed a berkley power worm on a high hook I make a habit of rigging for weakfish. When I saw the hook, I was very glad I was so careful, the hook was 40% straighened out! Although this fish was over 7 pounds, the general feeling was it should have been 9 pounds except it was not quite as round or thick as it should have been.
Good Fishing - Captain John