Me and friend Ed dropped the Ghost Rider into the basin about 7 a.m. At that time, temp. was about 50, with a slight offshore wind. When we got outside of Lanark shoal, we got greeted with a SE wind 10+ knots, and the temperature immediately ran up to about 60degrees. We started taking jackets off for the trip to Dog Island Reef almost immediately.
Birds were dipping inside the reef in about 20' of water, but we could see no blow ups at the surface. Casting and trolling only yielded one little mackerel. Seas on the reef were pretty big, with confused chop as a result of the tide going out, the wind blowing onshore, and some big rollers underneath. We got nothing else on the reef, but caught 8-10 little blue runners for bait at buoy #2. After waiting a while, we decided to run offshore to a 45' number. Seas were really lousy - the wind was not too bad, but there were nasty rollers with a two foot chop on top. I had to run the boat at about 10 knots it was so rough.
At the first spot, we boxed a nice red grouper, a nice gag, and I fought a large (I guess 200+ lbs) shark for about 15 minutes to the boat, where he did me the favor of cutting the leader before I had to. This was the biggest shark I have ever hooked and brought to the boat off Dog Island. He looked about 8 foot long, but I wasn't about to measure.
We then left the spot, trolled a bit, and boxed another nice gag. Finished the day by drifting and boxed one more nice gag. Finished with three gags, one red grouper, and two large sea bass. The mackeral I used for bait.
Nice day, but rougher than the 2' NOAA forecast (this is almost a given!).
Luck,
EJ
Lanark Report from Eddie Joe 11/15/03
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dstockwell
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