[kidflex]

Dec 6-7th 2008. The anticipation has been building for this overnight tuna trip out of Dauphin Iland, Aabama. The time finally arrived with a window of good weather and calm seas. I met up with jim(crazyjigr) and doug(d-a) in Mobile to get food for the trip and soon headed down to the island. we arrived at the dock at met the captain and crew. the boat is very nice and comfortable with plenty of room to fish and move about.
heres a link for the pic of the boat.
http://www.captainmikeonline.com/escape.htm

After a while freddy(ichibahn) dustin and anthony met us at the boat. fong and lee showed up a few minutes later. we decided to get something to eat and met up with jason(jason4606) and jerry at the B&B. We all piled in and made ourselves at home. There were rods, reels, and tackle bags everywhere while we prepared out tackle for tomorrows battle.(i do apologize for the blurry pics) The usual suspects:
dustin and anthony

fong and lee

jason freddy and jim

doug and jason talkin tackle, freddy giving lessons on the PR knot, jerry in the background

and myself

scott would show up at midnight. 0445 came around quick, Our hosts were nice enough to make an early breakfast for us.

We all headed out to the boat where the crew was waiting for us and help load all our equipment. (It never ceases to amaze me how much tackle a few fisherman can bring. estimated 40k in rod n reels and atleast 15k in lures).
As you can see there was plenty of room for jigging and popping gear inside the boat and out.

During our way out, the crew set out some trolling gear with the hopes of a wahoo or two. We ended up getting hit by kings instead. everyone had there turn with the kingfish and started to work on number two for each.

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We finally told the captain that we didnt want to troll anymore that we were not interested in kngfish. so we proceeded to some bouys and rigs to catch bait.
http://img391.imageshack.us/img391/3435/dscf1987ce6.jpg
we caught ruby lips and assorted pinfish, along with many of the endangered red snapper. i caught my personal best snapper on a 4oz diamond jig. the pic never took, hopefully someones took a pic of it.

After we had enough bait, we arrived at one of several oil rigs in 200-400ft. Wasnt long before the amberjacks started to co-operate. between jigs and live bait we almost had a 2 day limit per person at the first rig.
*I have to admit that the GOM amberjack pull twice as hard as the Atlantic Aj's. 20-30lbers were killing me.*
Here are some various pics of the action. Not many fish pictures were taken, too busy jiggin. At any given time there were double and triple hookups.
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A rare sight on this trip.
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After wearing ourselves out on Aj's we arrived at the Ram Powell floater
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We trolled until dark with no avail.
Once it became dark, the crew set up a chum line for the chunkers. black fin showed up and the bite was hot for a short time. chunk and subsurface lures produced well. Then the bite shut off. We stayed there for a while then moved on the the Neptune floating rig. Most of us were asleep during the night as the seas got rough and no surface action anywhere. the crew tied off to a rig where we recharged ourselves for the morning bite. the bite never came as we trolled around. We didnt waste much time before heading to the grouper grounds.

Fong hooks up first. He used a white 200g yozuri squid jig to produce this nice yellow edge grouper.
http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/7027/dscf2010mg4.jpg
Jason hooks into a cusk? weird looking fish. hopefully someone has a pic of this very interesting fish. We made a couple of stops at various rock formations where many different grouper species were caught, along with many snappers and amberjacks.
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Heres a picture of my first jigged grouper, nice yellow mouth. the pic was taken after we got back and the deckhand is holding it.
http://img74.imageshack.us/img74/8881/dscf2020yr9.jpg

Around 1330 we headed back to Dauphin Island. Off loaded our gear and collected our catch.

Although the Yelowfins were not around, it was good fishing trip. I'd like to thank capt. mike and skipper for being very friendly and professional captains, it was truley a pleasure fishing with your crew, the deckhands were also great.
Jim, doug, freddy, fong, scott, dustin, and anthony, it was great seeing and fishing with y'all again. Jason, jerry, and lee, very nice meeting y'all and hopefully will fish with all of you again. BTW congrats to jerry for popping his jigging cherry! you will not be the same. if anyone else has pics, post up, and fill in anything i might have left out. Brian

 

[MrBill]

It's a shame the whales ate or scared off all the tuna right before your trip.

I really like the looks and fishability of that boat.
What speed will it cruise?
I figure you guys brought those milkcrates with you. Did the PVC rod holders on the back of fish boxes support those bent butt rods OK?
How many people can fish the boat comfortably on a overnight trip?

 

[kidflex]

the boat travels at 15 knots, slow but comfortable ride. couple of guys brought milkcrates. those skb tackleboxes with four rod holders are awesome. i will buy one tomorrow! the pvc type holders held the rods fine, they put the 50wides on the rod holders on the back of the boat while trolling. this boat seems promising though. i believe this is the second nicest boat around next to the big e.

 

[CaptEddie]

I doubt the killer whales scared off the tuna as I caught 8 yf at ram Powell in three hours on wednesday. The fish have been feeding best in the middle of the day recently

 

[d-a]

I doubt the killer whales scared off the tuna as I caught 8 yf at ram Powell in three hours on wednesday. The fish have been feeding best in the middle of the day recently


Eddie

It was wensday that they got the footage of the Killer whales chasing the tuna around the "beer can". We fished 3 floaters and talked to a boat on the marlin and petronis that hadn't seen a YF too.

You wasnt out there sunday was you? The boat the captain was talking to was out of Venice.

d-a

 

[CaptEddie]

No I cancelled on sunday. Now that I think about it I was out at ram powell on tuesday not wednesday, but they were definitly there in force. Never saw a fish jump but we were doubling up using 4-5 inch long hardtails. I caught nearly all my fish between 1130am till 1 pm In the last few weeks I have had slow starts but the fish start picking up around 1030.

 

[Bellyups]

Thanks for posting Brian. It was great fishing with everyone again!!

Scott

 

[kidflex]

i shouldve submitted that yellowmouth grouper to whoever keeps Alabama state records. apparently for that species it is wide open. that fish was about 8-10 lbs less than the texas (24.5lb)and louisiana(23.0lb) record. wouldnt be a big accomplishment but wouldve been in the books regardless.

 

[crazyjigr]

Thanks for your grouper we ate some Monday night
Next time we go out on the Escape we'll do a 52hr instead of a 34hr and keep it at 10 crew