Laurie & Cicero's Favorite Spots

Recent Excitement

Home
Aspen
Charleston Lake
Charleston Lake Web Cams
Charleston Lake Weather Station
Panama City
Panama City Web Cam
Fireworks in Montreal
Family Photo Album
New Orleans
Caroline, John and Heather's Web Site
Links
Mobile Web Cam
Lady Laurie Live

Early Fisherman on St. Andrews pass jetty
fishermanonrockscg03792.jpg

Laurie, Dianne, Capt Evan, Roger, Robert, Chris and  I decided to go off shore about 90 miles and try to catch a billfish.  There is a lot work that goes into making a two day trip.  Preparing the Lady Laurie with fuel, food and drink.  We then have to obtain bait, frozen, artificial and live.  Early on the day of the trip, we took the Lady Laurie out to the bait boat just outside of our pass to obtain live bait.  It would not be there at the time we would be leaving our dock, at midnight!
 
On the way out, I spotted this fisherman in the picture above standing on the jetty rocks....we then headed on to the bait boat......

The bait boat!
baitboatcg03789.jpg

Before heading out, we had checked the weather for several days.  Sea was projected to be less than one foot, that is great, but was going to be very hot !  We had also obtained from a national service, the water temperature chart for the day we were to begin.

Sunrise 80 miles out in the Gulf on our first day!
waitingonstrikecg03813.jpg

Chris on the look out!
chrisonwatchcg03896.jpg

Chris gaffed Laurie's dophin!
chriswithlauriesdolphincg03822.jpg

Sunrise on our 2nd day out!
stormyskycg03892.jpg

The engines were started at six the next morning and we started trolling again.  Lost a large bull Dolphin, broke the line......Darn....raised another white marlin, but again could not get him to hook up.....

Laurie with a nice black grouper!
lauriewithgroupercg03907.jpg

We pull up to the bait boat!
gettingbaitcg03784.jpg

We got two of these baskets full of live bait!
baitcg03787.jpg

A moment of relaxation for the Captain on the way!
dianneevanlauriecg03804.jpg

The fighting chair is ready for a strike!
reelsreadycg03808.jpg

Nice Dolphin, Laurie
lauriewithdolfinecg03840.jpg

Late in the afternoon we anchored in about 300 feet of water for dinner, a little night fishing for grouper and a little rest as we had run the boat all night going out!
 
Laurie pan sauteed the smaller dolphin and made a little wine sauce for it.  A couple of bottles of wine later, we all headed to bed for some rest....It was a nice night on the ocean!
 
 

Even the old guy got a nice one!
cicerocg03912.jpg

Baitman loading the net basket!
baitmancg03785.jpg

After stopping for bait, we went back to the marina to fuel the Lady Laurie. We wanted to make sure that our tank was full for the trip.  It holds 800 gallons of diesel and we estimated that it would take about 400 gallons for the trip.  We spent the rest of the afternoon getting everything ready!

Laurie & Chris watching the lines!
chrisandlaurieonwatchcg03810.jpg

We trolled and trolled!  We raised three white marlins on the first morning but could not get them to hook up!  Darn!
We finally latched on to two Dolphin (mahi mahi) at the same time.  Laurie was in the fighting chair at the time so she got the first crack at bringing one to the deck.....and she did, and it was a nice one!  Robert brought the other one in!

Laurie in the fighting chair!
laurieinchaircg03837.jpg

Dianne on the look out!
diannewaitingonstrikecg03894.jpg

We tired of trolling and wanted some excitement so we decided to come in to one of our artificial reefs that we had built three years ago.  It was loaded with fish,  and in a very few minutes we caught out limit of black grouper.  Also got a few red snappers.

Wow!, a nice one Dianne!
diannewithgroupercg03901.jpg

Robert, Captain Evan and Roger
erogertevanandrogercg03842.jpg

Our team did a great job!  Just about the time we had finished catching our limit of grouper, one of the hydraulic  transmission lines blew out.  The team got it repaired, but, unfortunately, the repair did not last but for about 30 minutes, so we had to come in on one engine at about 8 knots rather than our regular 18 knots....but that just gave us more time on the beautiful sea for more fishing war stories!  We cannot wait to get back out there for the big one!

icon_back_to_top.gif

 
We welcome any comments, reactions or suggestions.