Lemon on the rocks & Tagging a few Caribean Reef Sharks

Had a chance to once again fish with avid shark hunter young buck Aaron Bunch last weekend .Aaron was anxious to get back to the keys for some water sports including some spearfishing around the kays shallows.We started Friday night by yakking some baits behind the campground while we sparked up barby and played some dominoes to pass the time .Of course we were quickly surrounded by other friends from the campground that got a wiff of the swine on the grill ,,,,,,no swine Flu here
We borrowed an inflatable from a neighbor and got in the water just after dark.

The yak on the roof of the souped up golf cart

gettin ready for the raucus on the rocks

Aaron did the yakking and i tended to the swine on the hot coals
Soon after the two 12/0's and one 14/0 were deployed with fresh bonitas I swung out a Boni head on my 9/o.The action was slow as the water tempature surges way past 80 degrees the sharks were out playing in the cold thermocline because we only managed one shark on this night,,,,,,,,and you guessed it it came on the hand tossed bait on the 9/0.Shannon his wife Sandra and young angler Meir joined us just in time for the hit on the 9/0.I gave the rod to Meir to practice on and he did a fine job aon the smallish 3 foot lemon shark.

Shannon leaders the small shark up and over the rocks for a quick release

Meir and I pose for a quick pic before the release

The next day we loaded up the boat to go out to the Deep blue but our plans were scuttled by the dammned mechanical side effects of 10 % Ethanol in my my gas tank ,,,,,not to mention the fact that the boat sat idle for three weekends in a row.So we enjoyed the park as we waited for the mechanic to do what he does best,,,,,OVERCHARGE ME WITHOUT THE VASELINE TO EASE THE PAIN!!!!

I tinkered with the filters and the batteries trying to avoid calling him but in the end the mechanic is put on the Chester the molester list after raping and running,,,,,OH WELL!!!

The next day we were in the water early and fishing like madman to catch some fish.We headed out to the red can tied up to it ,dropped the chumbag in and loaded up on live cigar minnows and blue runners with the sabiki and gold hooks.We headed out to do a deep water drift looking for a big Tiger ,a mako or even a Great white heading north .

we studied the chart looking for a nice ridge with a ripple to set up our drift in almost 650 feet of water

te cigar minnows for a hungry Tuna ,Wahoo or Dolphin,,,,,,we hoped


we set up our drift with one big bait on bottom with a cannonball weight ,one mid water ,and one hand tossed half bonita on the 9/0.The sun was almost unbearable on this day we drank a case of gatorade and i in particular attempted to stay in the shade offerded by the T top .We dropped two chum bags in ,,,one with ablock of frozen chum and the other with 3 nice carcasses.We also chunked wit herring pieces and set out the liveys on balloons but the sun was fying our brains and the fish were staying far and too deep to bear the sun or realize we were there.After what seemed like hours we hosed down and decided to move in to a local wreck to drop the liveys for some snapper or grouper action,,,,,no way Jose the wreck was loaded wit divers and other fisherman fighting for a spot on top.We moved off to another deep drop off in 88 feet of water and a while after were catching a few bonitas and amckeral on jigs and that was it ,,,,,the bottom fishing was off completely accept for a few Caribean reef sharks we nmanaged to tag and release the fishng was very slow.We will be back very soon .

the boni's

the macks

finally some shark action

Feisty green monsters is what we call these critters in the Bahamas ,,,,,they're super strong for there size and pound for pound as tough as hammerheads to land


tagged and released