Offshore Galveston 6/04 (AADE Tournament), Offshore Freeport 6/05

Finally strung two days of fishable weather together. Friday, up at 3 am, trailer boat to the Galveston Yacht Basin, and meet the clients (Lynn with Concentric, Michelle with Anardarko, Jeff with BP (i think) and RT with Kerr-McGee). Off we go into a fairly nice 2-3 foot swell with no chop, running about 30 knots. I couldn't stand it after passing one buoy at 20 miles, I stop on the green can on the south end of the Heald Bank. We get swarmed by ling. Hooked fish on dead sardines, jigs, anything we could get in the water. After the rodeo, 6 ling, all 30-40 lbs, are in the bottom of the boat. Up and running again, stop on a weedline looking for bait, another 40 lb ling swims up, eats a jig, and the battle is on. Ling #7 is in the boat. Pull up on a rig, start catching hardtails, and another ling pops out, eats a jig, and bingo, boat limit of ling by 9 am. We start king fishing, and burn up our live baits in about an hour, catching and releasing ~20 between 15-30 lbs, and boxing 3 that went 35-38. Dink around on some rocks in 90 feet of water, and pop a limit of snaps from 5-10 lbs. The biggest king took 2nd place (got blown out of first by Papotanic, they had a 47), and our biggest ling, get this, 6th place. I think 67 lbs won the ling category, so I would definitely say they have showed up.

Saturday, back to the home waters off Freeport. Five person charter (only one has been offshore before) and we get greeted with a nasty 2-4 chop with a 20 knt sw breeze, so everybody is soaked by the time we are ten miles out. Stop in the 32s, and pick up 7 or 8 snaps between 2 and 8 lbs. Push out further into the 21s, catch an 8 lb king, which promptly bites my middle finger (not quite bad enough for stitches). head to different rock, and finally get some ajs going, boxing our limit of five, all 20-30 lbs, and pick up a couple more kings. Dink around in the 21s the rest of the day, finishing off a limit of snaps to 14 lbs on sardine tipped bucktails, and a limit of kings on drifted sardines (small kings, by the way). Second to last fish, a sharpnose shark, manages to twist around on me while I am struggling to get a handle on him and bit me in the butt. Luckily, nothing hurt but my pride and his head (he got the womping stick for that). Two good days, but I already heard from Stretch this morning that he turned the boat around after a mile. Looks like a few bad weather days and maybe getting nicer for the weekend.