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Capt. Peter Young
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« on: September 30, 2006, 12:25:55 PM » |
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Offshore Night Fishing
This July, as temperatures climb to record setting heights from California, to the Carolinas, many Texas offshore anglers are finding a way to beat the heat by fishing at night. In addition to the cooler nocturnal temperatures, few spectacles can compare to the awe of an offshore sunset on the way out, or the breathtaking view of the vast starry skies, in open water.
Omar Torres, first mate aboard Risa Ann, a 45’ single screw charter boat out of South Padre Island, Texas reports nice catches of large snapper, grouper, and lots of sharks. Risa Ann and her crew troll during the day on a typical 24-hour trip, and at sundown, they will anchor up on “the rocks” sixty or so miles offshore and begin bottom fishing.
Nocturnal anglers in search of bottom dwelling quarry along the mid-Texas coast can head to Deep Sea Headquarters or Dolphin Docks, both located in the heart of Port Aransas, Texas. Rick Laros, an employee of Deep Sea Headquarters reports that the twelve hour night trips have been producing mostly red snapper, vermilion snapper, some kingfish, some sharks and boat loads of happy customers. Capt. Travis Simmons, a five-year veteran of Dolphin Docks, notes that they have been catching lots of kingfish, red snapper, Atlantic sharpnose sharks, dog snapper, and some larger vermilion snapper, about thirty or forty miles offshore, on their eleven-hour night trip. Look for Dolphin Docks to begin running their sixty and eighty hour offshore trips to the floating rigs found 130 miles offshore of the Port Aransas jetties, in search of the hard fighting tuna that live out there, within the next week.
Swordfishing is also a common nighttime activity for anglers with the proper means, as it is in the heat of the summer that the southeast winds lie down long enough for the Gulf Mexico to become as calm as a lake at times.
The owner and crew of the pristine fishing machine, Hot Rod, a 56’ Viking out of Rockport, Texas, spend their spare nights Swordfishing. That is, when they’re not spending their valuable time winning billfish tournaments like the annual Poco Bueno tournament held in Port O’Connor, Texas. Hot Rod recently caught a nice little swordfish off a drill ship that sits in about one thousand feet of water, on their way back from Louisiana.
One of the boats most dedicated to swordfishing on the Texas coast, is Booby Trap, a 46’ Bertram Express boat out of Freeport, Texas, operated by Capt. Brett Holden, a skipper who has been swordfishing since 1990. Booby Trap is a private vessel that fishes about five days a week and has caught twenty-four billfish in the past three weeks. Ten of those fish were swordfish, five of which were keeper fish, the biggest of which weighed in at 130 pounds. When fishing for “swordys”, Capt. Brett drift-fishes two to four hooks baited with two-pound squid or live blue runners illuminated with saline lights. The number of lines fished is largely dependant upon what the current will allow. The multiple baits are fished at different depths of water, sometimes using as much as ten pounds of weight to keep the bait down. Out of the ten “swordys” caught on Booby Trap this year, the last three were caught at less than twenty feet deep, four were caught at about 150 feet and three were caught at three hundred feet. Captain Brett feels that the phase of the moon is a major factor in determining which baits get bit. He notes that during a full moon they catch fish more towards the surface, and during a dark moon the fish seem to found at the deeper depths.
Capt. Peter Young
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