Friday went out of OI with my buddy Seth on his Bluewater 2850 with twin Zuke's..
We had some dead bait, but live bait is best so we went north of the inlet and caught 5 little 6 inch bluefish and threw them in the livewell.
We pounded our way out to the 65 Charlie tower, and had it all to ourselves about all day. Little rough out there, it was blowing NE 10 knots or so, on top of a good south swell.
We started off jigging, Seth lost a few barracuda's with false hookups, then the third chewed through the 100 lb leader, so we switched to some wire.
I hadn't done a haywire for a while, so Seth gave me some pointers. We tried again, but the fish turned off, so it was time for some blues to meet their end.
Hooked one onto a three way rig with 100 pound mono leader, rigged to 130 JB spectra on an Avet Pro 30W. I questioned Seth about the use of too heavy tackle, and he smiled. "Come on man, we don't need anything this heavy". Right.
Seth did a masterful job of putting me 4 feet from the tower leg in 3-5 foot seas. I dropped it down to about 80 feet and waited.
I felt the little blue getting nervous, twitching around down there, so I went ahead and set the drag to strike. The bluefish was inhaled, and the rod was hooked up.
Seth motored off the tower, and the fish was pulling line pretty good. I inched the drag up a little past strike. Still taking line, about 50 feet off the tower now. I inched it more and asked for the fighting belt. Got the belt and moved it to full drag. 30 lbs. Fish still taking drag, now we're 100 feet from the tower, and I haven't even reeled in yet, that bruiser was constantly taking line, even at full drag.
I came out of the rod because I just don't have enough ballast to hold back 30 pounds of drag for very long without a full harness, Seth got on it, and we kept motoring off, now 150 feet off the tower legs. Seth has the reel locked down and this fish is just inching line off the reel.
Next thing, POP, Seth loses him and we were like uh-oh, terminal failure. Bummer. Neither one of us touched the reel handle, there was no need. We set the hook, and that was all she wrote.
We cranked it in and inspected the terminal, we had everything except the hook. That fish made it back to a barnacle and nicked us off, the 100 lb leader looked like sandpaper on the end.
Congrats to the AJ, he gave us the big middle finger after getting his lunch. Hopefully he gets hooked again, but I'll doubt he gets caught.
Schooled by a Reef Donkey....
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