Picture this- its 4AM and you hear the whine of the motors trimming down, the boat is wet, you are tired yet excited, the coffee in your mug is starting to cool off and you are fumbling in the dark to make sure you packed everything.... to me that is the best feeling in the world! Myself and 4 really great guys loaded down the BirdDog with 120 pounds of ice, rods, enough tackle to supply a small village, food, drinks and safety gear. Once those two Yamaha motors fire up you know its game on! We made our way out of Charleston harbor in the dark with no wind, and what I was thinking would calm seas which it was not... but oh well we slugged it out for 40 miles of lumpy steep and tight waves. We hit the magic number for mid May, 130ft of water! Lines went in and it wasn't too long before one of the 30W reels started to sing its song! A real nice cow Mahi on a DTX in the prop wash! We trolled around just inside of the the gulf stream for a few hours and picked up some really nice Mahi, all of our lures were producing, DTX, ballyhoo, cedar plugs, and daisy chains. We finished up our troll and moved to a couple of my good spots for bottom critters where were put a nice queen trigger on ice and a load of grocery fish! At the end of the day the sharks were becoming a real nuisance so of course i had to hook one for the guys... It took about a minute... HA! All in all if i could do this every day with these guys I would, I had a blast and I hope whoever reads this reports joins me for a day as great as this one was in the near future!

Saturday May 16th we loaded down the boat with bait, rods, and ice and went to a little spot in about 60ft of water looking for sharks. It was definitely a slow start, high sun, and not a lot of current when we got there, however after about an hour of drifting we got our first bite! I assume it was a large bull shark, I run about 5ft of steel leader and got bit off above the swivel, so I am thinking the shark was just chomping its way up the line once we went tight on it. about 10 minutes after we got a very odd bite.... rod went tight, then loose, then tight again, I thought at first we were hung up on bottom because of how deep I was running that particular line, but nope!!! 30 inch Gag grouper!! wooo! what a treat! Immediately after handling our grouper and getting it on ice we hooked a tiger shark, a short one that didn't fight too hard but got him boat side for a nice clean easy release.

Capt. Bob ran a solid charter yesterday to some public number to fill the freezer! with 2 local anglers they were able to have a wide variety of fish to the boat including some big seabass and a limit of vermillion snapper! this was a quick 8hr trip and with the speed of the contender about 4 hours of fishing was done. The bait of choice was frozen squid, (always a hit). My personal favorite way to eat vermillion snapper is in tacos! I will blacken them with "Philips blackening seasoning" fresh cilantro, lime, sour cream, and a cold beverage! What is your favorite way to prepare your fish??

The time is now everyone, the big sharks are chewing!! We had a wonderful trip Sunday with a couple of great guys, one from North Carolina and the other Colorado. The BirdDog ran to about 60ft of water and with a nice wind from the North/Northeast it was a little sloppy but made for a great drift. We set out three rods, a deep, mid and top water set up. Using cut Bonita for bait on balloon rigs we had our first good hook up about 15 minutes in, however unfortunately we were unable to keep the shark on and lost it after the first big run. I suspect it was a bull based on depth, and that spot traditionally gives up a few nice bull sharks every spring. Fast forward about 30 minutes later as we crossed a nice piece of live bottom we hooked up to a heck of a hammerhead! I was not going to allow this one to get away and put a decent amount of drag on it while we cleared the lines and prepped the deck of the boat. everyone had a chance on the reel, and this shark was not giving up without a fight. It stayed up top and we were able to watch it for a while when we could get close. A few real good runs later it was boatside, but still pretty green and gave one last hoorah and snapped the leader which was 100 lb test. It was a fun day on the water and we were back at the dock around 1PM and home in time to watch the race!