I planned a trip out to catch some triggerfish the day after the Alabama/LSU game. Knowing me as I do, the trip was not scheduled to leave until the 9:30 or 10:00 am time frame. Hey, it’s Bama and the Bayou Kitties, there’s gonna be a large time to be had.
I had made trigger fishy promises to my good buddy Kevin Kirby, his sweetheart of a daughter Krystle, his other daughter’s baby daddy, Robert (you know, he da baby daddy) and my new friend Stephen Shirley, aka, bluffman from
www.theburningreel.com.
Stephen came over the night before the trip and hung with us as we watched Alabama once again snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Oh well, whatever. At least the triggerfish had been biting and I’d have that to look forward to.
Sunday morning was greeted through the fuzzy sight of my bloodshot eyes and the tempo of the newfound heart beat in my head. Several Goodies, a coke and a gator aide made life just bearable, however, there was nothing resembling saliva any where in my body.
Bluffman helped me get my old trusty Cape Horn loaded up while I tried to figure out where I might get a total transfusion and possibly a new liver. The rest of the posse arrived and it was just about time to go thirty.
We had Shawnodese launched and heading around the east end of Dauphin Island somewhere about 10:00 am. The north wind was a tad more than I had anticipated, but, the ride out had it at our backs as we skipped along at 34 knots. I had planned to run about 35 miles out, but the further we went, the more the north wind had an effect on the seas. It was a nice 2 foot whitecappy kinda day with a few larger ones thrown in to get your attention. I decided that the 20 miles range would be OK to start and we’d see where things went from there.
First spot we dropped on had yielded about 27 triggerfish so far this year on the charter boat, but, on Sunday it was smack dab full of red snapper. All four anglers were using small strips of squid on two hook rigs targeting triggers and/or beeliners. It didn’t much matter; the red snapper were thick and hungry. I moved on a bit further south to try again. Different spot, same story, more hungry red snapper. Also, I was holding up on that spot backwards, which makes life soooo much easier on single engine boats. I got an intermittent temperature alarm. Had plenty of water coming out of the tattle tale, but, decided to start fishing back to the north. We ran a couple of miles back and the temp alarm cleared never to be heard from again the rest of the day. Maybe a bit of grass got hung in there or something, I don’t know but will keep an eye out.
I throttled back on another spot that had given up 35 triggerfish in the last three or so weeks and figured we’d for sure get on them again. Nope. Three guesses what was there, and the first two don’t count….yep, more red snapper. I was really beginning to wonder if I shouldn’t have just caved in to my colossal hang over and hid under the bed Sunday morning.
Fortunately, I had plenty of places left to look, and the very next one was promising. We caught a few triggers there mixed in with red snapper and even a few beeliners, but, I noticed a 24ish foot single engine Robalo running to the northeast about ½ mile away. I also noticed he had radar, so I told everyone to pull up while I motored off of the spot and let them pass. Well, this individual makes a 90 degree turn to the west and is now running directly at me. Everyone takes note of his actions as he slows down and starts zig zagging his way to us. I continued motoring slowly to the west in hopes to drag him off the line between me and the spot we were fishing. If he didn’t mark it, he was in the neighbor hood. But, when he finally passed us by, you could have tossed him a cold drink from the cooler, as he waved at us with a big dopey grin. That kind of crap WILL get your nosed pressed firmly into your skull back at the dock. I went ahead and motored a few more miles north hoping the “Spot Pirate” would find something better to do with his time.
Now, all of the spots I had picked to fish are unpublished numbers that I have caught triggerfish on in the last couple of years. We had the Gulf basically to ourselves, so I was not too concerned about any shenanigans from folks intent on hound dogging people.
The next stop was a bit more of the same. Lots of red snapper. Da baby daddy finally caught a trigger and couldn’t believe it when we tossed at back as it didn’t make the measurement. Well, I think we might have had a couple of keeper triggers in the box with a couple of barley legal beeliners. The spot we were fishing was at least turning a trigger every now and then but someone noted that it looked like the “Spot Pirate” was coming back in. I hauled it out of there and was going to stop on a public spot just to give the jackass something to fish on, but, when I picked out a nice tank to head to, the other boat stopped on it. And it wasn’t our buddy on the Robalo. Matter of fact, we didn’t see him again the rest of the day, thankfully.
On with the fishing…..next stop was what the doctor ordered. First drop and everyone was hooked up, some with singles and some with doubles, and all were triggerfish that made the grade. The bite was awesome there. As the crew would reel the fish up, schools of other triggers would follow right up to the boat. Bluffman tired of fishing and morphed into “Deckhand Man”. He was cutting squid and dehooking fish like a machine, after a helpful hint for Captain Hangover. (Actually, by that point, I was back amongst the living). Matter of fact, the north wind finally quit blowing and the seas laid out beautifully. We hit them there until the bite slowed and checked 5 more spots to the north. All of those were stacked with red snapper.
Now, the ride in was fast and beautiful. I throttled Shawnodese to a very comfortable, if not chilly, 30.6 knot cruise and we watched a beautiful orange sun disappear into the western gulf.
It turned into one gorgeous day to be on the water. It was great seeing Krystle catching her first fish offshore. Da baby daddy, Robert, also got his first taste of offshore bottom fishing and I’d say he seemed to like it. And Kev, well, I have caught such grief from him lately about not taking him and the girls fishing, it’s good to get that monkey off my back as well….. Hehehehe….It was good to get to fish with my bud again; all of my time fishing the last couple of years has been spent running the charter boat. And the bluffman, I am not sure if he was feeling a little latent hangover or the bumpy seas had him feeling less than stellar early, but, he really stepped up to the plate and got it done helping out on the boat. Matter of fact, on the really good trigger spot, I doubt things would have gone as smoothly if he had not taken on the role of deck hand.
We loaded the boat, not without incident I might add, (See “The Heinous Incident with the Boat Trailer Winch” below for the gory details) and went to the house where the crew washed it and got the gear offloaded. We took the day’s catch up to the Marina and used my charter boat cleaning table to get to the tasty triggerfish filets.
Total take for the day was 30 triggerfish, 4 beeliners, 1 lane snapper and a pretty decent sea bass (squirrelfish around here).
The Heinous incident with the boat trailer winch
All we had left to do was put the boat on the trailer, wash it and clean the catch. I retrieved the truck and trailer while the crew admired the scenery of Billy Goat Hole at dusk. Now, someone was fiddling around on the ramp I wanted to take out on, so I took the ramp just west of the eastern most ramp, which is steep, but, I digress. I backed the trailer to about where I wanted it, as you cannot see your trailer due to the incline. I had Kevin walk to bow around as I stepped into the edge of the water to attach the trailer winch strap to the bow eye. Well, the day before this trip, I installed a brand spanking new trailer winch. I guess I must have been used to my old rusty one. Standing facing the boat and winch, I flipped the lever on the winch to what I THOUGHT was reverse with the clicker on, (but was actually free spool), and gave the winch strap a good pull to get the strap coming my way. BBAAMMMM…winch handle to the mouth at like mach 30……I wandered off to the front of the truck with my hand over my throbbing chin….waiting for my mouth to fill up with blood……checking to see how many teeth I had left………hhhmmmmm…..no irony taste…..hhhhhmmmmmm….tongue is telling me all teeth present and accounted for……hhhhmmmmmm…….dammmm……..now, all that dialogue went on in my head, cause I didn’t utter a word and everyone is kinda looking around like, what are you doing over there. Well, Stephen gets the winch strap on the boat and I start cranking the boat up. Lip starting to feel funny, not haha funny, yucky funny…. Feels like a shooter marble is stuck between my bottom lip and gum…..I quit cranking and sorta asked the group to take a gander at my lip….”Eeuuuwww”……
great, just what I thought. Now, how the heck that thing did not take out my teeth is a mystery to me, but it sure put a hell of a risin’ on it. I spent Monday morning waiting to get in to see my Dr and he looked at it and said, ….”Eeuuuwww……
you need to go see an oral surgeon and get some x-rays…..well, did you at least catch some fish?”
Oral surgeon guy, Dr. Larimore I believe, said I got lucky. He usually finds that when this happens, (yeah, I am not the only dumba$$ out there), the bottom jaw gets broken in the hinge. I was really mostly concerned that I had damaged the roots of the front 6 teeth. I didn’t want to wake up five weeks from now with black teeth that fall out a week later. Doc said it was the right thing to do. If you break a root, it needs to be dealt with ASAP.
Sunday, Nov. 4th aboard Shawnodese
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