Annual POC Trip

Scott and I had a great weekend fishing offshore this year with Capt. Steve Barnes. This years main goal for me was to get a amber jack on the fly rod, and Scott wanted to get into more dolphin. We got down into Port O'connor late Friday afternoon. After getting checked into the motel and unloading the truck we grabbed some good mexican food at one of the local restaurants. After eating to much we returned to out motel room and started putting our gear together for morning. The morning started off with some clouds and storms in close, we decided to punch through them and get offshore. The morning kinda started off a little slow because of the rain and storms. The first shrimp boat we stopped at I hooked up with a king fish right off the bat, but after that it was dead and we decided go out a little farther to get out of the rain. We stopped at a weed line and Scott was able to find a dolphin. After a sweet jump on the initial hook up the fish went deep. A few minutes later Scott got him in the boat. We had a few more swimming around but I wasn't able to hook up with any of them.

After going out a little further we started drifting over some rocks in 170 feet of water. Yes you can catch fish that deep on a fly rod. It has to be specifically designed to get that deep. But is is very doable. First drift over the rocks I hooked up with this reef donkey. These fish are incredible strong and you can't give them anything or they will break you off in the rocks.   

#2 of 3 Amberjack for the day. I probably could have caught more but those fish will kick your ass. I had to rest a few minutes between each fish.  

Scott with a nice red snapper. We caught many in the 10lb range.

Scott with his AJ. 

Day 2 started off great. We patrolled the beach front almost all day trying to get into some tarpon. We say plenty of tarpon but just couldn't convince any to bite. There was so much bait in the surf that I think the fish just had to many options that morning. 

Scott Caught a nice shark on a coon pop we 

were trolling behind the boat. 

 We caught some lady fish, gafftops, and small jacks on the long rods while trying to get into some tarpon. It just never happened. You couldn't have asked for better conditions to fish the beach front. I guess it just wasn't our day. In the coming weeks I'm going do a few blog post on the gear I use when fishing offshore. If yall have any questions I will try to answer them in the post. Let me know if there is anything specific you have questions on. 

 

Putting the TFO Bluewater to the test. 

Putting the heat on an amberjack.

One of many nice Red Snapper caught.