Reef Donkies A- B+

[N4ZNH]

Got a call from a friend on Sunday night about a trip to the tower on Monday to give the AJ's a try. He had 1 guy that had to bail last minute and had a spot open if I was interested. Even though I had just got back from a Sat-Sun overnighter to the Norfolk Canyon I couldn't resist.

We departed Rudee at day break and headed to the A Tower with about 30 spot and croaker in the baitwell and high hopes for some serious pullage. Got to the tower and they were there but for the 2nd time this year they did not want to play. They came storming out to greet us and sniffed our baits then turned there noses up and said no thanks. After about 2 hours we finally managed to boat 2 nice fish and pulled the hook on maybe 2 others. Unfortunately my baits were not the ones that got hit.

The plan was to head east looking for a marlin after we had our fill with AJ's but at this point we were still hungry for that back breaking fight these guys are famous for. Decide to run to the B Tower and see if those guys were hungry. Made the run and found them willing and ready to play. We spent the next 2 hours taking turns on some heavy hitters in the mid forty range up to 55 inches. I managed 2 releases at 52 and 54 inches along with a few other hook ups. After working em over with the conventional gear we decided to give the spinning gear a go. Me and Rick hooked up with a nice double and after a few trips around the boat and a few crossed lines we boated 2 real nice fish. David battled a nice one on a spinner for a nice release paper with the last live bait. Rick sent a jig down to see if he could hook up one more before we moved on and it didn't take long to hook up the last AJ of the day. Left em biting and headed east to look for the Marlin.

There were about 20 boat just east of us who had been working the Whites and a few Mahi but it wasn't in the cards for us. We saw one air out close to the boat but these fish had been run over hard all day by the fleet. Picked up and ran to the Hotdog and picked up a few Mahi to end the day before running back in.

The Canyon trip resulted in 13 Mahi all slingers and only 1 Mako pull during the night that cut off 2 lines. Not what we had expected after bringing home a nice mix of YFT and Mahi on the 2 prior trips but we had a lot of fun.

[N4ZNH]

Here's the link to some video footage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeoLujRaQGU

[BYRD]

That's some good fishing. Congrats on the paper and the dolphins. And thanks for posting.