GULF OF MEXICO MAY 2005

capt_dalton DauphinI sland, AL USA

We picked up keeper snapper on our first drops, but, they were just that: 16” keepers. They came on pogies and some fell for squid. With the skunk off the boat early I picked another tank number that had usually held good sized fish. It took some looking since the numbers were entered from an old calendar and I had never marked the exact location from this boat. But, the hunt was worth it when we finally marked it. Big hungry snapper were taking every live bait dropped. Then a big school of porpoises came along and pretty much turned the bite off. We drifted around the general area to see if we could relocate the fish and another boat pulled up to the same spot. While talking with them we put a couple more in the boat on live pinfish and croakers and about 5 boats pulled up. We had 3 fish to go on our three man limit and it was around 9:00am. We decided to leave that crowd and make a run out to deep water for some AJ’s and finish off our allotment of snapper. The seas were very calm, so we made short work of the 15 mile ride to the MP-251 rig. There is a jack up rig right beside it and there were three utility boats there and about thirteen fishing and diving boats. I didn’t even want to get into the fray with that many around, but, Gary and Elton convinced me. Most of the folks were tied off to the jackup and the rig, so I positioned the Regulator up current of the rig and held it there while the others fished. Gary started dropping squid and catching perfect bait sized beeliners while Elton was soaking some big ruby redlips. Elton got a good fish on a light rod and had a heck of a fight with the fish getting into the rig and getting him back out only to have the nicked up leader break at the hook close to the boat. It was enough to keep us fishing there though.

Well, now is when the adventure part of the story plays out. One of the boats we motored past that was tied to the jackup had lots of dive gear visible, but, they were not flying the Alfa or divers flag. There were no fishing rods and no one appearing on deck, so I figured they were in the cabin sleeping. It was a Wellcraft about 25’ with twin Evinrude 150’s. The boat name was “Catching Up” and was registered in Mississippi.

A tide line moved through and all of the boats that had been tied were moved from being pulled to the South East to being pulled to the North West. Well, that pushed the “Catching Up” right under a 3” water discharge line from the jackup rig. That boat was filling up fast. Elton said, “Come on boys, we can’t let that boat sink”. So we reeled all our lines in and pulled over to the vessel under the water fall. I was amazed that no one had come out of the cabin with all of the noise that water was making pounding down into the cockpit. Another boat full of divers next to them said that both the guys in the Wellcraft we still down on a dive. That was crazy. This boat was about two minutes from going down. I put the nose of the Regulator to it’s stern and we hooked it’s gunnel with a rig hook. I tried to back around to the north, but, the weight of their boat full of water made it impossible. We unhooked and I spun our boats stern to his starboard corner and Gary was able to get the rig hook through a brace on their swim platform. I was able to move the boat out from under the discharge hose, but, it was so full of water the gunnel was beginning to go under. Slow and steady I pulled the Wellcraft out of harms way. We unhooked our rig hook and backed off to see if it would stay afloat. That’s when the divers surfaced. They looked at us like we were trying to steal their boat or something. The urgency of the situation did not dawn on these guys very fast. Their motor cowlings were sitting almost halfway underwater with water flowing freely into the deep notched transom. They boarded through the transom and began moving tanks and coolers to the bow trying to lift the stern, which helped.

At no time did a bilge pump kick on. At no time did any of the other boats, all within less than 100 yards of each other come to this vessels aide. The other boat full of divers next to the Wellcraft was about 15 feet away and did nothing. You know, to top it off, the guys in the Wellcraft never said “Thank You”, “Hey we appreciate what you just did”, they never even made any attempt to acknowledge us.

Well, I told Elton and Gary you get “Cool points” with God for doing stuff like that. I put the Reg back in position to fish and on the first drop Gary hooked up immediately with a big sow snapper. We high fived and boxed that bad boy. The next live baits out all were annihilated by AJ’s. Some of the other boats asked us how we were fishing to be catching and nobody else was. I told them they kept putting their bait in the cooler instead of back on a hook and sending it down.

We headed on in around 12:30 to get some air in the boat and hit a couple more spots to finish off our limit of snaps. I ran over a small mark and we fished it catching some nice snappers. We were taking it to the house. I decided to make a final count on fish and make sure we didn’t have too many, or too few. Good thing, we only had 11 snaps. So we tried a couple of those new pyramids near the tanks south of the island. I found 2 of the 3 I looked for, but, nothing remarkable showed and definitely didn’t pull anything off of them. Finished the day off with a 18” fish on a tank and pointed it north. About ten miles out, we developed some kind of fuel delivery issue with the starboard engine so we were stop and go all the way to the Island. I don’t think it’s anything major, maybe a clogged fuel filter under the cowling, but, it did put us getting in two hours later than I had planned. I ain’t complaining. The weather was incredible, the fish were biting pretty good, we had a box full of good fish including: triggerfish, amberjack, lane snapper, white snapper and beeliners. We only caught one gag grouper and he was 21” so he went back to grow up. I got to fish a good deal thanks to Elton getting behind the wheel. I think everyone got ‘em a bigun, and we even kept some one from having to swim home.
Yep, not a bad opening day Adventure.