Reef Raider Adventures: May 2009

Well Reef Raider fans the weather and my schedule has kept me off the water, but I have some pictures here of the catch that some of my good friends put on this weekend. I will dispense with the long winded play by play since I did not make this trip and I don't have all the details; but suffice it to say these guys braved storms, semi rough seas, and a slow start to an early morning. Still, in the end they caught their targeted species, and still had time to anchor up over some nice fresh bottom to pull in a few almost requisite Tails. Enjoy the Pics.

Here's Danny with his catch and the prize of the day

Same fish back on land (can't count Danny's ribs in this shot, LOL!)

"Hey it looks bigger like this right?"

The Captain is all smiles, after all he did put the boys on the fish

They caught'em but I found'em

Mundi shows them off

Check out the Tails on the left, the Captains favorite

Here are the Totals, I see at least 4 Dolphin and 3 or more Tails, not too bad

Nice Job guys!

Day 1

OK Fans the Reef Raider is back with more adventures and fish tales, and I got a doozy for you right from the get go.

As you probably know I try to make a yearly pilgrimage to catch the Mutton Snapper which spawn during the full moons of May and June. In the past I have been to Bimini and also to Key west for this yearly assault on that species, but this would be my first time doing it on the Reef Raider (my boat).

The crew consisted of some familiar characters, Myself of course, my cousin Freddy, my good friend Hector, and back as First Mate my infamous Brother. We also picked up another angler for the second day, an old friend who just got back in the groove, Alex Cazañas.

We Left Miami Thursday around 1:30 and made the trip quickly and uneventfully, and actually had the boat in the water by 5:30PM. Since most of the day was gone, the plan was to hit the Yellowtails for a little while and then target the Mutton later in the evening. We put the Chum bag in the water and it was not long before we were fishing. Just peanuts at first, there was no current which is never good for Yellowtailing, or for any other fish for that matter, but still we had a bite. Freddy is always the sour puss and frustration with small fish and lack of current caused him to hang up the rod early on. My brother (“The Mate”) doesn't fish so he maned the bait and chum duties along with the Camera.

This is how Fred feels about small tails and no current

Hector and I kept plugging along and though the bite was slow and the fish were small we still managed to get 17 tails in the ice chest. Hectors persistence also paid off with a prized Muttton that we put in the 8 to 10 pound range. Check it out.

Look at that big Mutton and even bigger Smile

Day 2

This is where the trip got interesting, my good friend Juan Estevez was in Key West for the Mutton all week, and as good a fisherman as he is he also found the Mutton bite rather slow. He managed to boat 12 to 15 during the week, but when you are Mutton fishing during Spawn you expect twice that many in a single night.

Anyway, Juan gave me some top secret numbers to a Yellowtail spot he has well off shore (about 20 miles) that harbors some exceptional Yellowtail action. He and another good friend of mine Humberto Miret had fished there on Tuesday and had absolutely hammered the tails, and even had a nice size King to show off.

That's Humberto with one of the Tails

caught at the Yellowtail hole a couple days earlier

Here is Juan (Papo) with a King caught at that same spot

So anyway, with the GPS numbers to the location provided by Juan in hand, the crew pumped to slay the tails, and another avid angler in Cazañas on board, we set out for the long run in my little boat, which by the way handled amazingly when you consider it is merely 18' in length with a 140 Suzuki and transported 5 anglers and all their bait and tackle on a trek of more than 40 miles and used only 16 gallons of fuel.

So we get near the numbers and low and behold there are two other boats there, one we were expecting, as we are aware that the commercial guys fish out here, but the other, a Dive boat was a bit of a surprise. We went around their bow, made a wide pass around the back and then moved in to find our location. The guys on the dive boat were waving as if they were not to happy we were there, but they don't own the ocean, and I felt that our distance from their boat was both reasonable and acceptable.

The Depth finder was marking huge balls of fish which we expected, and excitement was in the air as we knew we were going to do well in this spot. “Wait what's up did the current change?” “Damn! We are adrift, we must have come loose, let me check the rope and re-anchor if we have to.” so I proceeded to the Bow to check the rope, and as I pulled it in the rope came all the way up and but at the end there was no anchor, just the clamp the ties to it. I was a little dumbfounded to tell you the truth, I had not checked the clamp in some time and it's possible that vibrations could have caused it to come lose, but my instincts were telling me it was sabotage.

The crew talked me out of it, which avoided confrontation with the Dive boat, but I still felt something was wrong. We were not there 5 minutes and after a 1 hour run we were distraught at the fact that now we had to head back without even attempting to fish the area. As I drove back I pondered the circumstances that may have caused my anchor clamp to come loose, certainly not an impossibility as many on the boat said, but I couldn't stop thinking about it. We had traveled about 8 miles when it hit me. Those sons of bitches had purposefully unfastened the clamp on my anchor underwater, and here is how I figured it out. See I have a Plow anchor (which works great in both sand and rock) the anchor much like a Grappling anchor for rocks has and eyelet opening in the front and another on the shaft or rear of the anchor. I tie the clamp to the front and then secure the chain to the shaft with a tie wrap. What this does is it allows the anchor to set as expected but should it become lodged in the rock, a quick engine burst will cause the tie wrap to pop and the anchor will easily be dislodged from whatever obstruction was holding it. So you see if the clamp did in fact come loose which is possible, the chain secured to the anchor with the tie wrap show still have brought the anchor up. There is no way both fasteners would have failed simultaneously, therefore I concluded those Sons of bitches had sabotaged us.

Our instinct was to turn around and go kick ass, but we were already 8 miles out nearly half way back and we debated the serious repercussions that a high seas altercation could bring upon us, so leveler heads prevailed and we continued back to the mainland, but still fantasizing about running into that same vessel back on land.

Anyway, to make a long story short, we bought a new anchor, reloaded on gas, and headed back out to see if we could hit some Mutton. We fished for a couple hours and the current was absolutely dead. I had one good run while my rod was leaning up against the gunnel so I missed the bite. Later I hooked into a nice one, but my line got wrapped on my cousin Freddy's and I was broken off. We were super bummed about the circumstances that had befallen us on that day, but still thrilled with just being out to sea with friends and family and enjoying the many adventures we always seem to have on the REEF RAIDER

Here are the rest of the pictures, enjoy