Capt Tim Barefoot with a nice Gag, Matt Perkins with a Cobia, Eddie Hardgrove, CAM co-publisher, with a King mackerel.
We put the boat in the water before the sun came up. The big orange was coming across the water to our left as we went through the inlet headed to points unknown to me. Our captain, Tim Barefoot plugged in some numbers on his GPS and we began our journey.
About an hour later we were a little more than 20 miles offshore and the GPS told us we had found our spot. The picture on the screen was the biggest concentration of life on the bottom that I had ever seen. I have taken my own boat offshore and watched the bottom for structure variations that held fish, and I have been moderately successful. But this was different. The ball of bait was massive.
Tim circled back away from the spot and tacked into the current as Matt prepared to drop the anchor. Once the anchor hit bottom Tim kept his eye on the screen until we were once again on top of the massive school of bait. Eddie and I each grabbed a rod with a sabiki rig attached and we began to catch bait. In short order the livewell held plenty of bait. While we were catching bait, Tim and Matt were rigging up two light lines, one with a circle hook chin weight, and live sardine, and the other with a gitzem jig and live sardine. These rods were cast out behind the boat so that the baits could swim with the current. We all grabbed a rod with a Barefoot Crab Decoy and rigged them with live grass grunts that we had caught and dropped them to the bottom.
Within seconds I felt the telltale tug and set the hook. I was excited as I knew that this was a large fish and I was anticipating catching a large Gag grouper. The fish swam away from the boat and began to come up in the water. Tim said he thought it might be a shark.
About five minutes later, I pulled the Tiger shark along side the boat. It was about 6 or 7 feet long. Tim tried to release the shark with a deehooker but I think that was when the shark realized it was hooked. She got mad and took off again. I know that the real experienced guys get frustrated when they catch these but this was my first big shark. I enjoyed the fight and smiled when Tim finally released the big shark.
In the meantime the Black sea bass, grunts, and grouper were grabbing everything that was dropped overboard. Tim hooked up with another huge shark; this one was so big that it could not be turned. Tim broke it off and since the bottom had quieted down a bit, we decided to move on to another set of Tim’s numbers. This one had a bigger bait concentration than the last one and it was on again. Then the light lines started getting bit. A couple of Kings, a stud false albacore, maybe a lost Wahoo.
There were times when the four of us were each fighting a fish at the same time. In fact, I was dropping a crab decoy to the bottom when the light line drag started screaming. Since I was closest to it, Matt asked me to grab that one. He took the rod I had in my hand as I grabbed the screaming lite line. This was the False albacore. Tim was already fighting a nice Gag, Eddie had a King attached from the other light line, and a nice Cobia grabbed the jig I had dropped and Matt brought it in.
This is a fishing method that Tim has used for quite a while. He burns a lot less fuel than those that go out and troll all day, and we still came home with a box full of good food. I can tell you that I plan to do this again.
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