A Weekend on BCP! 1st report!

Hey there guys, this weekend was the best. My buddies and I spent the weekend trying to land some nice fish and had a great time!

Friday night I got off work and went home to start getting ready for a night of shark fishing. Grabbed my Penn senator 9/0 on my 10ft lamiglass and the redfish and stingray that were sitting in the deep freezer just waiting to be on the end of my rig.

Met up with my friends Juwan and Zac and we headed out to the ever so fun, Big Carlos Pass to meet up with my roommate and fellow sharker Dylan Gigliotti. We got to the bridge at about 9pm and got our baits in the water on the incoming tide. We spent all night out on the bridge just having a great time and trying to catch the big snook and tarpon that call the lights there home around the bridge. We ended up all passing out near our rods with fresh baits on the bottom right as the slack tide hit around 4:30am. I was lying with my head directly next to my rod when heard the clicker scream the wonderful song that I had been waiting so long for. Before it could even click a half a dozen times I had the rod up and clicker off letting the amazing fish take his early morning meal. I flipped the reel off of free spool, reeled the slack and set the hook.

Bowed Up!!

This was my first hook up on my new 9/0 and it was fun. The rod was bowing so much it was nearly touching the bridge as the monster rips drag until the reel became too hot to hold and we had to apply some water.

The fish fought for what seemed like forever, tearing drag and running away from the bridge into the bay. Finally the fish surfaces and we see a Goliath Grouper come up that is easily 100+ lbs. As I am walking the rod to the beachside of the bridge I try to go around the gates that rise for the drawbridge. As I pass the rod around to myself, the worst thing that could happen to any fisherman happens.....the monster revives and does a full strength dive. My 9/0 and jewfish, flys out of my hand and into the murky water below.

The entire group is now staring at each other, shocked, nobody really knowing what to do. My friends and fellow shark fisherman Dylan and Juwan grab there spinning rods and start casting into the water. After about 20 minutes of casting with the hope of retrieving the rod, the team was feeling like we may have just lost this one.

All of a sudden, Juwan's rod bends down with great force; he has hooked my line with his bare hook and could feel the jewfish still on it. He began to raise the line towards the bridge as the 9/0 comes up out of the water, and the jewfish come up on the other side. The jewfish decided he was going to dive for the piling during this crucial moment. Juwan was able to able enough pressure to turn the fish and pull him back out of what could have been the end of the story, but it goes on!

Knowing the line would not hold if Juwan tried to crank the 90 up, Dylan quickly grabbed his small spinning reel with a lure on it and with incredible technique twirled the lure around my line and hooked my top guide with it. The team was able to grab the 9/0 and I was able to finish what I had started. In came the jewfish, happy he didn’t have to swim around with my shark rod attached to his jaw.

The jewfish was properly unhooked and revived; he swam away almost as soon as he was in the water to be a prize catches another day!

Juwan and I then got our stuff together and headed home to shower up. After eating and getting out rigs made we headed to the Fort Myers beach pier to catch some bait. We met up with our friend Phillip who told us that the Spanish mackerel and jacks were in big schools around the pier feeding on the smaller baitfish. We set up our spinning rods with a silver spoon and a gotcha lure and began working them across the surface. No sooner could our lures hit the water were we hooked up. We ended up catching almost 30 Spanish mackerel, 2 jacks, and 1 bonita and put them on ice for Saturday night. We got to the pier at about 7pm on Saturday night, met up with our friends Rudy, Matt, and Phillip who already had baits down in the water. We quickly set up our rigs as the tide was getting ready to slack out. With all the baits in the water, the wait begins!

I was the first to get a run; I had the whole bonita down on my 9/0 on the bottom. I heard the clicker scream and grabbed it, this was a fast run. I let him eat the bait for a minute before setting the hook. As I pull the slack tight and begin setting the hook the line goes slack and the bait slips off. Guess it’s not my turn, but Rudy is suddenly running towards his 9/0 which is on the other side of the bridge. As he grabs the rod and sets the hook, the fight begins!

Bowed Up!!

Rudy brings in a good sized nurse shark to add to the catches for the night!

As Rudy is wrapping up his nurse catch, I start to walk back up to keep an eye on my rod, clearly this is going to be a slack tide to remember. As I walk up to our stuff and grab a Gatorade from the cooler. Juwan and I hear what I believe is the the fastest run I have ever heard on his 9/0. As soon as the clicker goes flying with the rod rip bowing viciously, we see this monster fish come breaching out of the water on a perfect quiet calm bay. The amazing fish is tail walking and doing everything he can to get the hook out of his jaw. But Juwan has him hooked and guess what he is?...

Bowed Up!!

The fish is running super-fast from one side of the bay to the other, he is trying to swim his way into the channel in the middle of the draw bridge but Juwan quickly jumps the railing and gets leverage on the outside of the guard rail and turns the monster back towards him and away from almost certain break off.

The fight continues, we started the fight on the northeast side of the bridge and were now almost to the west beach bank. This amazing fish had sure given Juwan the fight of his life.

End the end, we see the fish rise to surface; it’s what we all were hoping for, the silver king, a tarpon. He was easily 120lb+ and was approximately 6 feet long. What a night this has turned into!

Disclaimer!! This was Juwan’s first tarpon; we now know to try our absolute best to keep this silver king in the water and to reduce the amount of beach time as much as possible. we used this as a learning experience and the fish was properly revived and swam off with a smile on its face, taking gulps of air as it went.

What a catch!!

As we wrap up the tarpon release, I start walking back up to my rods. As I walk by my friend Rudy’s Penn 9/0 Senator with a live ladyfish down by the puling, I hear the clicker scream. I quickly grab the rod and set the hook. I start walking the rod away from the piling to try to get what is clearly another jewfish from diving into the hole. The fish was powering through the drag so fast that I was unable to stop him from getting to his home and the line was broke off.

You probably think it’s about time for a break, but no sooner had I set the rod down, did I hear my 9/0 screaming from the other side. As I ran to set the hook on this one, I notice the behavior is very similar, strong pull and diving directly under the bridge for the piling. My bait slips off as I set the hook and the fish is lost, but this is getting intense.

After about 2 or 3 more runs of what we believe to be jewfish, all resulting in the losing of the fish, we got new baits in the water on the other side for the outgoing tide and set up the sleeping bags. This is now day two of sleeping on the wonderful cold concrete of the Big Carlos Pass with only about 4 hours of sleep to show for it. Overall the trip was a ton of fun; we plan on going out again tonight and try our luck against the monsters that this southwest Florida water holds.

Hope you guys liked the report, more to come soon.

have fun, and get Bowed Up!!