Report submitted by 'Scott'
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Port Aransas Offshore Report
Port Aransas, TX
January 20th, 2005
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Matt Palmtag, J.D. Arnold and I headed offshore aboard Matt's
boat, the She & I, at sunrise. The seas were pretty rough for the first
10 miles, so we planned to not go too far offshore. At about 10 miles out,
we hit a rip. On the other side of the rip, it was gin calm and flat, which
was strange.
Since we could over some ground, we headed out to some rocks.
We found an area with lots of bait and chicken dolphin, so we decided to
troll for a couple hours before bottom fishing. After awhile with no success,
we pulled up all the lines (we thought) and decided to head elsewhere to
bottom fish. After running a mile or so, we slowed down for some reason.
Boom, the TLD 30 starts peeling drag, and we were wondering what was going
on as we saw the water boil like crazy about 150 yards off the stern.
Well, as luck would have it, we forgot to take in the center
line, which was getting spooled by a nice fish. J.D. grabbed the rod and
eventually brought in a big 60# wahoo. Pretty cool to catch a huge wahoo
when you don't even know you are fishing!
We decided to troll a bit longer, and about 10 minutes later, I hooked up
on a 40# wahoo.
We trolled for a little while longer, but a rip had broken up
and we were getting weeded out. After that, we decided to fish the bottom.
I caught a 25 pound, 1 ounce grouper of some sort. What was weird, which
the pictures don't really show, is that it was covered with orange spots
and had some unusual other features. Well, 5 biologists with UTMSI and TPW
haven't been able to properly "key it out" and determine what kind of grouper
it is. The consensus so far, is tiger grouper, but we'll see.
Matt then hooked up and brought a 5 to 6 foot dusky or silky
shark to the boat, which got off before we could get pics. I then got a 4
foot blacktip, which we released. Matt then caught an estimated 40# AJ.
Altogether, it was an epic day offshore. Thanks Capt. Matt once again.
- Old Salt
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