Scout Trip to Blue Water - August 20, 2011© Photos Posted by Mark Miller © Hi-Res Source
The water was flat, there were no charters booked, and 2 of my 3 sons, Paul & Luke, were on me to take them Blue Water Diving, so what else was there to do but make a Scout Trip out there. With Fishing Regulations what they are, we needed to see if we could effectively Target Blue Water Species. While we have been successful in the past, that kind of fishing is like trout fishing, you sometimes have to find them. I had never been to Petronius and heard so much about the good Wahoo fishing there, so that was our initial destination we put in the GPS. We left out about 2:30AM and we stopped at a couple Rigs about 10 miles before Petronius as the Sun was coming up a little before 6AM (Yes, my boat is not fast). It was a beautiful sunrise, as you can see in the pictures, and the seas were indeed flat and calm. We were in our element. We could not wait for Petronius and made our first dive on MP256A. We left there and headed to Petronius, stopping to play with a school of Chicken Dolphin along the way. It was a large school and we could have caught all we wanted, but we stopped at a little over a dozen as we could not wait to see the infamous Petronius. The dive on Petronius was good, but it certainly is a very loud rig, both above and below the water. We left Petronius headed for Marlin. We could not seem to make it there as we encountered more Mahi, small Blackfin Tuna, a LeatherBack Sea Turtle, and even a Whale. The Whale was a good quarter mile away and sounded just as we pulled up to get a look. We are pretty sure it was a Sperm Whale. We then hit a blue water tide line about 2 miles before Marlin and played in some Floatsom before finally arriving at Marlin. The big game fish just did not seem to be active. We then went to the Beer Can Rig, also known as Neptune Spar, and made a dive there. From there we headed north stopping at MP281A for an AJ and some nice Tropical Fish Diving. Our final stop was on LA34. It was a great long day that encompassed 210 nautical miles, 113.3 gallons of fuel, and 20.4 hours.
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