[Third Bar Slim]

Made it to Little Sister around 6:00 p.m. on Saturday with my brother and 3 lurker amigos. Bridled some live baits and bump trolled til dark with nothing desirable. Guys on the rig told us some big AJ's were on the legs, so we sent down some live baits and managed one keeper, several throwbacks and broke off several larger specimens that we couldn't turn. Started diamong jigging, live baiting, and chunking - caught 1,000 hardtails, a small strawberry grouper, more small AJ's, a nice blackfin, an almaco jack, several sharks, 2 African pompano, and a rainbow runner. Around 3 a.m. we had some nice blackfin show up in the chunk line but they wouldn't touch anything - very frustrating. Right after that a trio of heavyweight yellowfin showed up for about 5 seconds and disappeared. Seas were dead calm all night but there was some major lightning in the distance in all directions. Around 4 a.m. we decide to start heading inshore and bumped over to the near intersection rig. More hardtails, another nice black fin, a horse eye jack, and 3 UFO's that broke off. By this time we were surrounded by lightning in all directions. At daylight we picked a small window to the east a bit and started heading in. The window closed so we punched through rain, lightning, and nasty 3 footers for about 25 miles. Finally cleared it and hit a snapper spot on the way in. 3 keepers, several undersized and a small king. We're pretty exhausted at this point and take it to the house. Back around 1 p.m.

Wish we could have duplicated Capt. C's tuna success, but that's the way it goes.. Had a lot of fun iwth my brother and friends, though, with several species and consistent action throughout the night.

Mark

 

[James Howell]

Where are the African pompano? I see some mighty big black jacks. Those suckers are tough, maybe even tougher than a jack crevalle. Next time you are out there, you may want to do a drop or two on the little sister hump, with REALLY HEAVY TACKLE, if you get my drift.

 

[teckersley]

Sounds familiar Third Bar. We were at Cerveza Sat night and saw and did almost the exact same thing. We did manage to get a few AJs out of Jalapeno Sunday morning. The tuna never showed up at Cerveza. I am guess mostly due to a crew boat that was stern tied to the rig with his engines in geat for literally 2 hours around midnight while unlaoding a BUNCH of stuff. Couldn't get past the triggers and sharks for ant snapper on the way back. Congrats on the trip.

 

[phattuna]

Mark, I really enjoyed the time out with you and your brother. Like several of the other trips on your brother's boat, I had a great time and I will remember this trip forever.

 

[teckersley]

Sorry to piggy back on your report but I can't think of a thing to add other than a cople of pics.

 

[Third Bar Slim]

Blck Jacks, huh? I have never heard of one. We had only seen pictures of AP's, so that was everyone's immediate assumption. Both fish were light silver when caught, but turned brown on ice. You are correct, they both gave the angler a great fight. Thanks for the i.d. - I assume the meat is not palatable? It didn't look bad at all when we cleaned them. The other anglers read this board, so I guess I can't pull a joke and tell them that I cooked it and it was the best thing I have ever tasted.

Thanks for saving a potential gastric disaster- you are definitely the fish i.d. master of this board.

Mark

 

[teckersley]

.

 

[Third Bar Slim]

Speaking of table fare, how are the almaco and horse eye jacks? When they were caught, the question was "does this taste like amberjack or jack crevalle?" I swore I have read, seen, or head that they weren't bad, so we threw them on ice. Howell...any input? If not desirable we can always use them for bait.

Mark

 

[James Howell]

Almacos are just like ajs, but I have never eaten the black jacks or horse-eyes. If the meat doesn't look bloody like a crevalle's, I would give it a try.

 

[Captn C]

I can't find anyhting about the Black Jack other than photos. The Horse Eye Jack like I caught Saturday night is listed about like a crevalle (table wise)...smelled about the same too!

 

[Argo]

Great shark bait for surf fishermen.

 

[Johnboat]

This is an African Pompano

Meat was firm...almost beef-like.

 

[Steelersfan]

Here is a link for Blackjack or Almaco Jack (up to 75 lbs). The Black Jack (two words) looks to be a small baitfish similar to a blue runner. They said they only get up to 3 lbs or so.

For the Blackjack, the food value is listed as good, especially grilled.

http://www.rodnreel.com/gulffish/gulffish.asp?cmd=view&FishID=42

 

[Third Bar Slim]

Pic and diary entry

Here's a pic of the fish after it was caught.

I don't typically do this but I thought I'd share my diary entry for today:

August 30, 2004

Dear Diary:

Life has been good lately, but eventually I knew the "fish misidentification dumbass" bug would hit me. I've been on a roll but I knew it wouldn't last forever. Thanks to the world wide web, several hundred fellow offshore enthusiasts now know that I couldn't identify an African Pompano if it hit me in the head. To make myself feel better, I am going to give me mother-in-law some horse eye jack fillets and instruct her to broil it with just a little salt and pepper.

Mark

 

[James Howell]

ROFLMAO, I had to shut the door to my office I was laughing so hard, Mark.

 

[Johnboat]

Y'know, the pictures all start to look alike

the picture I posted is a young african pompano, still with the long streamers on the dorsal fin. The rodnreel site picture of the larger mature example has the same basic shape as the one you caught.

 

[Omanj]

Black Jacks are good

My family and I caught some Black Jacks when we stayed for the first time on our shrimper friend's shrimp boat for three days and two nights. We filleted them out, along with some African Pompano to 25 lbs. and both were excellent eating, whether fried, smoked or broiled. One day I got up in the crows nest and when I looked down, a huge school of Black Jacks passed by about twenty feet underwater and it was one of the most awesome sights I had ever seen offshore. I also landed a couple of Black Jacks on a topwater Rapala, talk about awesome strikes! We caught about six African Pompano, all at night on weighted drift lines with cigar minnows.