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| Early Fisherman on St. Andrews pass jetty |
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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......
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| The bait boat! |
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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! |
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| Chris on the look out! |
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| Chris gaffed Laurie's dophin! |
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| Sunrise on our 2nd day out! |
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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! |
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| We pull up to the bait boat! |
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| We got two of these baskets full of live bait! |
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| A moment of relaxation for the Captain on the way! |
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| The fighting chair is ready for a strike! |
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| Nice Dolphin, Laurie |
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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! |
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| Baitman loading the net basket! |
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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! |
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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! |
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| Dianne on the look out! |
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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! |
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| Robert, Captain Evan and Roger |
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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!
We welcome any comments, reactions or suggestions.
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