It's Wednesday, the 5th of June 2002 at 11:00 in the morning.
The forecast called for clear skies and and a high low tide at 3:00 in the afternoon.
Winds were out of the SSE 5-10mph for most of the day.
Seeing as how I didn't get in until 2:30 the night before, the late start is pretty understandable. With gas prices being so high, I even have to have my friends buy gas when they want to go fishing with me. I wish I could say: "hey lets go fishing" and cover everything. But unfortunately I can't, so they have to pay if they want to go because if they didn't we would have to stay in port due to low funds in the bank account. Enough of that, we decided to go catch bait at Chino. We managed to get alot of pinfish but the whitebait was kind of hard to get. By the time we arrived at Chino from the river we were down to four and sometimes only 3 bars of gas. Instead of fishing Tween Water and Redfish we decided to head back to the Blair Hole and try for some extra large racing mullet.
Eventhough it was an outgoing tide with plenty of water moving the Racing Mullet just weren't interested in our offerings of White Bait Patte and Pinfish alamode. If I remember correctly we only got one short snook there and that was about it.
Next we decided to try the same structure we fished the day and night before. Someone had already beat us there, so we fished the other side with much to do about nothing. We had the perfect bait in my opinion to fish the area and a slowing tide which makes it a little easier to get the bait down. They just were not interested though. Time to head for the next spot.
I convinced Cory to fish a nearby wreck and after a little searching we found it along with some fish piled up around it. First we caught bait which was so easy that gum chewing would have looked tough compared to it. Loaded with three bait wells full of bait it was time to jump on some fish. I anchored up a few feet in front of the wreck and we chummed at least a hundred threads in the water. Before long Tarpon began to roll and mackerel began to bust bait all around us. I was fishing tight to the bottom with a 2 oz sinker and 80lb leader when something hammered my Pinfish. After 45 seconds of tusseling with that fish I managed to get him at boatside. It was a gag grouper of about 5lbs. They sure do fight good, whether it is in shallow water or deep water they can still give you a workout. Cory and Lenny started to get bite after bite and every time their leader would be cut clean. Soon we realized the 5 lb macks were just wearing them out. Cory switched over to Steel leader and then they quit biting. Maybe because of the slack tide, at least that is my reasoning.
Next, we decided to give the first spot another shot, hoping the boat had finally left. No go, still there, so we decided to hit the other side again. As we first pulled up a Tarpon rolled in front of us which always gets us a little optimistic about our chances at a nice fish. After 15 minutes of nothing Lenny hooked a strong fish that turned out to be a small mackerel. We fished another 15 minutes with no luck and decided to take it to the house.
It took us about 30 minutes to get home from the area we were fishing and when we got back to the dock not one threadfin had died. I usually dump a bunch of the dead bait out in order to feed my pinfish and snapper at the dock. Sometimes when we unload a bunch of bait the Tarpon start feeding and if you throw a bait out you may be lucky enough to catch one. Well we threw out two of the three livewells that were full of threadfin. Sure enough the jacks started busting bait and then some Tarpon started joining in, BTW the squid sharks were there in full force also. While cleaning the boat, I caught one squid shark in about an hour. My wife Angela came out about 7:00pm and she brought the sharks with her. There were two hungry blacktips searching the area for an easy meal. Those two sharks were pretty funny fellows. Eventhough there was dead threads all over the bottom, they would only eat the live ones. I grabbed a frisky thread out of the livewell, tailhooked it and handed the rod to Angela. Within a minute or two those two sharks were fighting each other over who would get the first taste of that thread steak. Neither of them were fast enough to catch it, so I got out the sissors and cut the tail off of the Thread and tossed him back in. Pow!!! Shark On!!! In two minutes or so Angela had the little guy at the boat ready to land. She was very apprehensive about posing for this picture with the shark because she was affraid it may bite her. As you can tell she toughened up long enough to get this shot.
To finish things off,(I thought) Angela didn't want to go in. She was fixated on catching a Tarpon. I think she wasn't happy with the picture of the Tarpon on the front page of this website since she wan't holding it up, I guess she felt like she had something to prove. The sharks were tenacious and they attempted to eat every bait that we threw out. In some occaisions a Tarpon would beat the sharks to the punch, but he would miss the thread when he would try to eat it. The mosquitoes starting coming out in droves, but Angela was to determined. She wanted to catch a Tarpon. Sure enough Wham!!! Tarpon ON!!! He was a good boy too. I think he jumped about 7 or 8 good times altogether. Angela finally managed to get him to the boat and that is where the fun began. I was able to Boga grip him quite easily and remove the hook. Now is when the fun begins. I waited a minute or two for her to calm down so she could get her strength back enough to hold the fish. She carefully slid her hand over my hand into the boga strap. I slid my hand out while continuing to support the weight of the fish. Then I said: "I am going to let you hold all of his weight while I hand the tail to you." She didn't seem to excited about that but she went along anyhow. I lifted the tail of the Tarpon and placed it in her hand, the tail then promptly slid right out of her hand. I grabbed the tail again and had her position her hand a little higher. I ran a few feet away to grab the camera and when I went to take the picture I realized my hand was completely covered in slime, so I had to grab the camera with the opposite hand and take the pic. The tarpon started to shake uncontrollably out of my wifes hand, nearly jerking her arm out of socket. If it wasn't for the boga grip she would have definately lost the fish.
I ran back over to her ready to remove the boga grip from her hand. She said: "No I am going to have this picture taken if it kills me." I repositioned the Boga on her hand and lifted the Tarpon's tail back into her other hand. I backed off a little and wiped a pound of slime off on my shorts so I could take the pic. I took three or four and as it turned out I was sure glad I did. I revived the fish and he swam away. I looked back at Angela and she was nearly laying down on the dock she was so tired from the whole ordeal.
Well, it turned out to be one doosy of a day. Angela is still talking about that Tarpon. I think she got the bug because she decided she wanted to go out for some more Tarpon action the next day. It's always a good thing when your spouse wants to participate in something you love.
Until next time may you have line singing, leader fraying, and drag screaming action!!!!
