Yankee Capts Pulley Ridge Lite Monster Fish Extravaganza

July 16, 2019 by cudamanadventures

What can I say this is another one for the books. I must say thanks to all our sponsors http://www.yankeecapts.com , http://www.h4ljigs.com , http://www.tacklenow.com , http://www.strikertackle.com , suarez liquors at 799 West 29 St, Hialeah, FL ,Victor Colon of Island Girl EVSM Prints, and Ralph of “Rods By Ralph”.

On Thursday it all started with hopes of fishing extra time but electric storms vanished that notion as we had to refuge behind the Dry Tortugas Fort Jefferson, on the way there we had a hook injury miss hap. Friday began with slow fishing and quality pickings then Saturday was epic mayhem with big and quality fish all over the boat. On Sunday around 8:15 am we hit the docks and verified who had the biggest snapper then gave away the rest of the prizes.

We all got there around 10 am to load the boat and fill our coolers with ice. It was hot as heck.

With everything loaded we headed out to sea, I got the whole group together and handed out 3 jigs per pack and two mini bottles of rum and vodka to everyone (some packs included assist hooks provided by tacklenow.com. The jigs were provided by H4LJigs.com , Strikertackle.com and this humble blog. The rum and vodka were sponsored by Suarez Liquors. We raffled the “Next” reel and two packs of assist hook sponsored by http://www.tacklenow.com , Victor the fish slayer won the reel. We then raffled the items sponsored by Rods By Ralph; A 9 foot rod which was won by Mario the unlucky and a custom made gaff won by Jordan the self proclaimed Floyd Mayweather of this Dry Tortugas and winner of this year’s big Fish and big grouper spots.

While going on the way to the fishing grounds I gathered everyone and they all received a pack with jigs sponsored by http://www.strikerjigs.com , http://www.h4ljigs.com and13fishing.com.

Yes the following did happen to Mario the unlucky, the waters were on the bit ruff side and as he was walking upstairs he grabbed the rail and an exposed hook that was on a rod. I had to run to cut the hook of the line and get Mario some help. Jordan tried using a pair of pliers to cu the hook off but it was too small luckily for Marion Ralph had bigger pliers and Jordan cut the hook’s barb then pulled the hook. Tony the mate washed Mario’s finger with hydrogen Peroxide and I applied triple antibiotics and a band aid. Mario was a trooper and continued as if nothing ever happened.

We were a few miles off the Fort and Captain Greg Mercurio told me we had to stop behind the Fort because there were too many electric storms. We waited the entire night and began our voyage to Pulley Ridge at 5:00am.

When morning came Chef Chad had a spread of all sorts of baked goods and potato chips as well as other snacks and fruits.

Breakfast was served with eggs and bacon on a fully loaded bagel. Coffee and soft drinks were available during the entire trip. The $125 meal plan was so well worth it and was never hungry.

It was 11 am and we started fishing. Francis got his first Red Grouper on a Mungus jig sponsored H4L jigs.

Lunchtime came and Chef Chad did not disappoint. There were burgers that you could only find at a 5 start restaurant. this pic does not do it justice.

I was able to get a scamp and a long skinny red grouper while slow jigging a slowpitch jig.

Crab cake appetizer at lunchtime.

Friday night the fishing picked up fast. Here is NY Fire Captain and his first mutton on a Jig.

An hour later he connected with a nice 10 to 11 pound mutton snapper while longfall jigging and slowpitch jigging combination. He had trouble getting fish to bite but we all worked with him and fine tuned his technique until he started catching the fish.

This day was Jordan’s day connecting with a big king and his personal best grouper on the slowpitch jigging, later to beat it by catching another black grouper on bait.

On Saturday Jose was very happy when things turned around for him as he and others on the transom were getting pounded by sharks the day before. He got a really nice African Pompano.

Not to say Victor was happy as he was bringing his line up he got hit by a massive African Pompano as well.

Mario didn’t waist anytime as he saw a mahi mahi and tossed a bait at it.

I switched to speed jigging and connected on a couple of snappers while using H4L Jigs. This 150 gram jig made it to the bottom at 270 feet with strong current.

Victor the fish slayer also connected with an H4L sponsored jig.

William got a nice red grouper on the slowpitch jigging.

I gave a try to the 13 Fishing octopus jig and connected with 2 red groupers, jigs was 6 ounces so I had to wait for the current to slow down. The 9 and 12 ounce jigs seemed to hit the bottom without problems.

Francis kept going back to the Mungus jigs and kept catching red groupers and mutton snappers.

On the last drift Jordan was fishing for mutton snappers on a strip of fresh caught bonito and hooked up to this monster 60 pound black grouper. Hell of a fish!!!!

On the way out a nice scallop and lobster dinner was waiting for us. Chef Cad outdid himself on this one.

The appetizer which I ate as a dessert was a Blackfin Tuna with a mango sauce.

It was another great trip and the sun was setting and we started to wind down and get ready to get get home.

Once at the docks the fish distribution started.

Proof is in the pudding they say, just look at those coolers. Below are Jose still waiting on his fish to be distributed, then Dan and Dan from team Shake and Bake and Francis with full coolers.

Below are George, Chris, Jordan, Captain Greg, Jongsoo and William still waiting on fish to be distributed.

Full coolers and quality fish, this is our heaven.

Here is Jordan and his big grouper and biggest fish of the trip.

The snapper pool was a tough one since there were so many mutton snappers in the 10 to 12 pound range.

I gotta say Robert’s team knew what they were doing and connected with a lot of fish.

Below is Jordan with his winnings for biggest fish and biggest grouper.

Dan won a painting during the last raffle.

Francis also won a painting print during the last raffle.

George won this painting print for catching the biggest mutton.

Victor won the “Next” fishing reel sponsored by http://www.tacklenow.com

Ralph won a pack of jigs for catching the fish grouper and Keith won a pack of jigs for catching the first snapper.

Once again, thanks to all our sponsors and thanks to everyone that fished with us. I must say that the mates were as always working top notch and Chef Chad had our snacks and soft drinks flowing along with great quality meals.

Yankee Capts Halfway Ledge 7-12-18 Awesome Times!

July 16, 2018 by cudamanadventures

It is always a tedious process to put together a fishing trip a year in advance, yet I always love looking forward to the next. Being a Charter Master isn’t something easy but it’s fun and it’s where my fishing trip starts. Many got on the trip, many dropped off due to new jobs or family issues, others because of health issues and so on. But finally in a crunch of a few weeks we were able to get all replacements done and as always with the exception of once, we found all great people to fish with.

I started collecting bait very late as I had many family outings that preventing me from going in the search for bait on a daily basis. I usually start one week before the trip and load up on as many fresh baits as possible. This year it got tough I looked for goggle eyes and spedos but was only able to get a few goggle eyes and a few baby bonitos. That was not a problem as I was planning on jigging in the daytime and using baits at night time only. Below is my bait setup at one of the local piers and before you ask there isn’t a specific pier where you can get your bait, you must visit all of them and then when you find the bait you go there as often as possible.

Before I loaded up the car I made sure to include 3 pitch rods, 2 bottom rods, and 3 jigging rods and one of the jigging rods to double as a heavy grouper rod. The Capt had contacted me through the office as he was out there fishing and told me to bring heavy weights as the current was very strong. I notified everyone and was glad I did since some times I needed to use 2 pounds to keep my bait on the bottom, but vertical jigs of 200 grams and up were no problem to hit the bottom.

As we were driving up I noticed the old trailer park in Sunshine Keys that was next to the Missouri Ohio bridge was completely gone, but as always in the keys rebuilding after a hurricane was already in progress and many new stores, houses, and projects were already started or completed before the last hurricane, hell, my roof is still being replaced jsut now after many months of humid battles against the rain and the Keys are looking amazing in comparison to my house. “We survived, now we thrive” is always the motto of the keys and they have proven it.

An awesome sight along the highway was to see the rebuild of the old 7 Mile Bridge is back on the way again.

A dream for me had been to see this bridge in Big Pine Key reopened to fishing once again (Spanish Harbor West End). As a teenager this was my favorite bridge to fish from. Even when I had a boat I spent a few weeks fishing under it with my family. I am so exited go see it again, there will be no more taking a long piece of 4×4 to sneak in the middle of the night to fish from this bridge. Oh boy! Oops did I say that?

Well we got to the boat and as always it was on to the Hogfish Grill for a nice Hogfish lunch and a drink.Once lunch was over it was back on to getting the boat loaded. Sorry for the pic below it is not meant to offend anyone but its towards Captain Rare who on the last minute made us all look for a replacement. I know he was glad to see this picture. He was missed as he is always part of the fun.

With the boat mostly loaded it was just time to wait for a few straggler running late.With everyone there all the trucks, cars, and vans were parked it was time to go on this adventure.

While on the boat, we all got together upstairs and talked about the plans and giveaways of goodies donated by Osage. Everyone got a bag with 3 items or more in them, randomly given to everyone of the fishermen. Plus a white hat in case they needed one.

And while on the way another middle finger for Captain Rare. Why not!

We got there early morning and the bite started. Here is William with a nice Red Grouper.

Jordan with a Mutton Snapper.

The fish started flying in the boat, we had a nice hot bite!

I hooked up a decent Scamp Grouper on the slow pitch jigging depot jig right before sunrise.

Can you complain about a nice fish filled sunrise?

Eugene hit it hard with this nice Porgy.

I kept on the slow pitch jigs and hooked up on this Amberjack that was released.

Dan got a nice Red Grouper while jigging.

I saw some top water action so I threw an H4L Wingman to get me this nice Black Fin Tuna.

Alex got this Grouper pool winning Fire Truck Red Grouper.

On Jose’s first trip he hooked up nice on the Red Grouper as well.

This is what the first box looked like by 10:30 am. It was full!

Well, morning have to start with nice fishing and a nice breakfast right? So here my my custome breakfast by Chef Chad. Here is his menu.

https://yankeecapts.com/yankee-capts-galley/

The day went on slowly but surely, Robert hooked up another nice Red Grouper.

Well, why not show the rest of the sotry? Even the small fish were aggressive, look at this 2 lizard fish hitting a jig. They must have said I’ll get half abd you get half?

Double hook ups trippele hook ups were still seeing around noon.

Dan got a Nice Scamp Grouper right before we drifted into sand and the the Slippery Dicks started to show up.

Lunchtime came so I was ready to eat my bun less sirloin and bacon burger.

The Red Grouper kept on coming I think just about everyone got a few of them or even their limit.

As I kept on and off with the slow pitch jigs I hooked up another Blackfin Tuna.

The current was getting out of control so the sea anchor was deployed.

And in again came the double hookups but this time jigs were king.

Another nice Scamp Grouper this time by Robert.

And a nice fatty Red Grouper by Eugene.

While at the bow Victor was getting his Mutton it ended up in a double. This is a Father and son in law combo!

Robert had been doing slow on the first day and then woke up and killed the next day! Here he is with a nice red grouper.

Well we were at sunset city and things started to slow down a bit.

We filled the second box around midnight when the blackfins started to shoe up in bigger numbers!

The next moring came in and Art wok up and it was a rotation between him, Jordan, Little Chris, Miami Chris, and Mario. They got plenty Mutton Snappers while us at the bow were just looking at one another.

Things got so slow after that, we even found someone trying to fish with an orange! The jigs were king again, here is Chris on his slow pitch jigging Red Grouper.

My back started hurting so I stopped jigging and decided to go big and pay the price of not catching fish for the opportunity to get a big grouper. I used spedos and big squids I kick my self for missing 4 bites that almost pulled my in the water but hey! It’s fishing not catching! (kicks my self again!)

Rory with a broken leg made the best of his trip fishing at the rail as much as possible. Here he is with a nice Mutton Snapper.

Robert did great with the slowpitch jigs and his 10 bucks plastic squid, here he is with a nice wahoo.

The Shake and Bait double D’s Dan and Dan also did great vertical jigging all styles.

Lunch time came up and a nice meal was at hand. A Chef’s Philly with out the bun.

As you know all good things must end, it was our last chance at fishing and we we got to the spot it was filled with hundreds of Barracudas and Amber Jacks, but William was able to get through them and catch this last mutton of the trip. after that it was home bound.

On the way home we got our last dinner. With an awesome starter of Avocado and tuna.

The shrimp scampi was amazing!

And one last look and a Florida West Coast Sunset.

And what a way to enjoy it with a nice beer, meal, new and old fishing buddies! Even if there were a few name callings, a few screams for getting lines crossed, a few “HEY who drank my Gatorade? In the end we all ended up smiling and drinking the night away on the way home.

When we got back to the dock it was only a short wait to get our fish. The totes were overloaded with them and we had had a nice sleep before we got to the docks in the morning.

Here is Donald who won biggest Snapper with this about 14 pound Mutton Snapper.

Not only did he win the pool but also a nice goodie bag with the Havana Club Rum donate by Captain Rare and Churchill cigars donated by Osage.

Here is Robert again with biggest fish. He also won the pool for biggest fish and a goodie bag with a Stag knife, braid tantrum, Yo-Zuri Chrystal 3d, and detachable rod butt.

Below is Alex with biggest Grouper. He won a bottle of 12 year Old Flor de Caña Rum donated by Suarez Liquors located at 799 West 29 st Hialeah FL 33012 and Churchill cigars donated by Osage.

Mario got a goodie bag from donations by Osgage and my self. This was for catching the first grouper.

Victor got a goodie bag from donations by Osgage and my self. This was for catching the first Mutton Snapper.

Robert got a goodie bag from donations by Osgage and my self. This was for catching the first and only wahoo.

And now some of the fish pics and cooler pics to make some people jealous for not coming on this trip.

I hope you have enjoyed the report. Keep your lines Tight and until next time!

And my apologies to Captain Greg for getting so loud on the last day while coming back home, but we threw a party to celebrate our success.

A great thanks to:

Captain Greg for making this trip affordable to all of us.
Osage for donating the vast amounts of items for the giveaways
Captain Rare for supplying the rum for our celebration and for biggest mutton
Suarez Liquors for supplying the 12 year old Flor de Caña rum for biggest grouper

Naples Middlegrounds fishing on Findictive 10-10-15

October 12, 2015 by cudamanadventures

Alex Garriga a member of 360tuna.com setup a vertical jigging only fishing trip. We were to only fish with jigs and other artificial baits. This trip was meant for trophy Gag Grouper and Red Grouper with the hopes of a Black Grouper fish and not to just put meat in the cooler. With that in mind some of us knew our chances were lower than a regular fishing trip, but we pushed our luck and stayed on target with our agreement of quality.

As we got to the docks we unloaded our gear and spoke with Captain Michael of Findictive Charters, he gave us the bad news, no Gag Groupers had been caught near the area and the Red Grouper season had closed 2 days earlier by a decision of the commission. He did say that a 50 pound Carborita was caught a few days earlier (a Black Grouper) He suggested Yellowtail Snapper fishing, but we stayed on our mission for quality and told him that we were not going to use bait and wanted a chance at trophy groupers. He suggested we start at 150 feet deep and work our way up to 180 feet deep. We agreed and off we were to our adventure.

Below, Alex smiles to the camera as Jarred on the right speaks with Captain Michael. The boat is a Custom Built 31 foot Ocean Master

After the one hour plus ride we arrived at the first drop where my son caught a nice Scamp Grouper followed by Mike and his about 18 pound Red Grouper (a best for him), I ended with a medium sized Rudder Fish which we released. The day started with a hot bite of quality fish and we were very optimistic as to how the day would end.

On the second stop half hour later Mike got another nice Scamp Grouper on a Taifun jig.

It wasn’t until 11 in the morning when the bite started to pick up, I was able to nail a nice 18 to 20 pound Red Grouper on a prototype jig using a 7 foot 400 gram prototype fishing rod I am co-developing with “Shark Sport Fishing Tackle”. I did risk it with using 60 lb leader as everyone else was using 80 to 100 pound test leader. But as I have fished in those waters before, I knew that there was mostly big plains of lime stone and small amounts of rocks for the fish to hide. My plan was if I get cut off on the rocks then I would change my leader to 80 pound test, but that did not happen.

Below is the video.

After my Red Grouper Mike was able to hook another Red Grouper and the bite slowed to almost non existent. We moved several times without success. The Captain asked if we wanted to have fun with some Amber Jacks and a possible chance at a Carborita fish (a Black Grouper). So we said yes and as soon as we got there Alex was cutoff by a Barracuda and my son hooked up to an Amber Jack and released it. Jarred also hooked up and lost one, then almost instantly hooked up another and this time he was able to bring it to the boat. Both fish were released and Mike had changed to an old fashion jig with a grub tail allowing him to catch another Red Grouper that was also released. Well, all Red Groupers were released.

Below is a video

After the Amber Jacks, the bite slowed down and we went on for two hours with out getting anything as the Captain even tried anchoring and moving to many spots. Then Alex also changed his strategy from the verticals to an old fashion jig with a grubtail, this allowed him to land a nice Scamp that would be part of dinner some day.

The bite slowed down again and when it picked up it was nothing but Vermilion and Lane Snappers biting on our jigs and grubs. So the trip ended and we got ready for our 2 hour ride back to shore. The boat has great speed of about 30 miles per hour and luckily for the ones that wanted to keep dry it had a cover that prevented the spray of water from wetting them.

A bird came to us as we sailed away and promptly disappeared as no one fed it. Just a friendly reminder, please do not feed wildlife or it becomes a nu sense and you help change their habits.

Here is a look at the boat as we docked at the end of our trip. We did not catch much on this trip but we did book a Red Grouper season opener for next year hoping to stumble on some Cobias as we fish for the groupers.

As always it was fun to fish with everyone. Mike that drove from Georgia whom I think caught the most fish with the grubs, Rayan that hadn’t slept for 48 hours and drove from West Palm Beach Florida (I think no sleeping affected his fishing), Jarred from Davie Florida, and Alex from Pembroke Pines Florida. Can’t wait to do it again.

Reward Won Vertical Jigging Trip- Last Trip of 2011

December 30, 2011 by cudamanadventures

THE FISHING TRIP: DECEMBER 17TH, 2011
Aboard the “REWARD WON” with Captain Wayne
The Spot : Offshore Miami and Biscayne, Florida
weather : cloudy, no wind

On the way out

Seas: Flat Calm!
Water: Clear all day
Fish catches : Amberjack, ALmaco Jacks, Groupers, small Blackfin Tuna, with bonitos in the mix
Biggest size : Type : Almacojacks around 15 to 20 lbs, Red Grouper around 10lbs, small scamp and snowy
Technique : Jigging
Jigs :100-300 gram, Hammered Diamond jigs. red/white, blue, silver, pink, green, and glow worked the most.

I got to the docks a little late as the boat engine was on I though “Oh NOOOOOOO, they are leaving without me!” But they were just warming up the boat. The trip starded slowly as we were in the shallower water, the fish were not there but the captain as always found the fish , this time in over 300 feet of water. We saw some beginners today turn good jiggers and birthday boy Peter’s first offshore catch was priceless. And now, the rest of the story: