Roger Strickland and 5 of his friends....damn! I remember when I had five friends....Anyway, they all got to the dock around 0600 Saturday so we loaded up and headed out for an 8 hour trip. I had a trip the day before and we really had to earn every fish so I was determined not to let that happen again! I made a beeline to the rocks disregarding all the dragging shrimpboats and (mini) rips along the way. I came up on Hospital rock and the current was ripping to the northeast. I set up on the southern edge hoping to get at least a 10 minute drift before falling off the other edge. We started catching kings about midrock and before we got to the dropoff we had 3 rods bending. I didn't want to scatter the fish too much so I picked up and made the same drift again. That kept everyone pretty busy as we closed in on a limit when one of the flatlines exploded! DORADO!!! Nice one too but he shook out of it pretty quick. We laid another flatline out and in just a few minutes we had another on. We got a gaff in that one. He must've gone close to 30 pounds. Sounds like we're having a good day, right? Well I made another drift needing a couple more kings in the box. This time I've got a few of the guys fishing a little deeper for amberjack. We drift close to the edge and snag our kings and while the guys are fighting them in, an AJ rig takes off turbo-style! About 20 minutes into that fight, another starts peeling off line on Roger's rig. So much for wanting to keep the fish in a tight circle! We drifted a half mile before we boated those two amberjack. Both of them went 50ish! Wow! The guys were showing that they were getting whipped but we just had to make one more drift. By that time other boats figured out that we must be catching too many fish and moved in on us. One of the guys did catch one more smaller AJ and the bottom rigs caught nothing. The current was just too strong to catch any decent snapper. I headed inshore to try to find an open rig where the current might not be so bad. I finally found a rig to get tied up on but the water was just moving too fast. The guys didn't get the snapper that they wanted but I did find a shrimpboat that I knew the guys and we swapped out for about 20 pounds of tails! Snapper, or in this case, no snapper...doesn't matter. It was a Helluva day! Hope to see you guys again soon. Capt Tom

It's July again and the shrimpboats went back to work. They were scheduled to start shrimping on July 15 but as all of you must have heard by now, we had Hurricane Claudette for a visit that day! Damage was minimal on land in this area but about half the population of Port Aransas were left with a nasty hangover! We found a few tuna around a dragging shrimpboat by Eastern Rock on Saturday. Hopefully that's a sign that everything is getting back to normal. The water has been ugly out on the rocks since the storm until Friday. The water is still not the cobalt blue that we're used to seeing this time of year but it definitely had a blue tint to it. One of the guys in the McCook group picked up a 90# sandbar (brown) shark down amongst the tuna. They're sending me a pic this week, so I'll get it online soon. Sure enjoyed meeting you, William, Les, and the rest of the crew. I'll keep everyone posted on the next decent tuna bite.

Hi Guys. Guess It's about time to update again. You're probably all thinking that I only go out about once a year now! Anyway, Jon Barnett set up the last trip for James House (of James House Paints) and a few other buddies. Arnold Govella, long time friend, fishin' buddy,(and shrimp eatin' buddy) and local attorney was decking for me that day so I knew we had a shot at a fun fishing trip. Man, I wasn't wrong! I headed out to the rocks mainly because Jon had booked a ten hour trip and I knew there would be plenty of time to taste it all. We all lasted the 2 hour boat ride out and started dropping ballyhoo to drag up the hill on Aransas Rock. I almost got the bait out far enough when, ZAP! Got a hit! FISH ON!!! Back 'er down! Ended up to be a pretty healthy wahoo. I trolled around for another 20 minutes or so but that ended up being the last of the hooters for the day. I moved over to Hospital Rock and set out the hoos again but the fish just weren't interested in moving baits. I slowed to nearly stop and we got a double goin'. Kingfish! We hung on there until we got close to a limit and snagged an AJ then moved on to Eastern. We captured a few more kings and started letting out the bottom rigs. Before we knew it we had a limit of snapper too! What a day! What a box of fish! What a good bunch of new friends! Hope you give all your fish away soon, Jon and we'll do it again real soon. Thanks everyone, Capt Tom

On the previous trip, Saturday March 18 we sailed from "Fisherman's Wharf" with a group of guys from Houston. Andrew Engleman called down to the "Wharf" and booked the trip for some builders/friends from that area. I hadn't met them before they showed up at the boat around 6:30 on the day of his trip. Otherwise I probably would have warned them all of the "Port Aransas Flu" that's so easily spread. It starts with that first "cool one" that goes down soooo smooth when you arrive to our wonderful little town. You crack open another....and another, next thing you know, they're makin' last call at Sharkey's Beach Club and you gotta get up in an hour....ready for the trip.....Well you know the story....I'd invite the Pope to go fishin' with me but I'm afraid he'd catch the flu too! Anyway we set out about 7:00 AM in search of tuna. The weather sucked with showers springing up everywhere and around 20 knot winds from the southeast. The water was dingy for the first 20 miles out and I knew we were destined to a rock called Big Southern. Okay...another 15 miles to go and hopefully find a shrimpboat along the way and trade beer for cull. We were just coming up on the rock without seeing any boats and I glanced over at the rig and being pretty lucky in these situations there was a shrimper tied up with his catch on the back deck almost like he was waiting there for us! He was as eager to make the trade as we were. I turned back about a half mile to get right on top of Southern and started chumming. It took about 15 minutes for the tuna to sniff us out as we continued to drift and chum. FISH ON! TWO ON! THREE ON! We kept on the same drift through the entire catch. It was smokin' Man! I don't think a second passed that we didn't have a fish hooked up. You hook up a lot more tuna than you actually land but hey, that's just part of fishing. We stayed on the fish for about 2 hours and it was evident that the guys were worn out. We had filled three huge ice chests with fish and now ready for the 2 hour trip back to the dock. We arrived back home about 1:45 and started hanging fish. What a catch!! 508 pounds of tuna! 4 yellowfin and I forget how many blackfin. Incredible day. Thanx guys. Stay in touch and come back soon. Tight lines to ya. Capt. Tom

If at all possible and especially during the winter months, it might be wise to set two days aside in order to get 1 decent fishing (weather) day out of your stay. We are not so overbooked this time of the year that we couldn't do that for you. It would be impossible during the summer months as we are usually booked every day. We would always have you go out on the better days as we depend on your having the day that you had anticipated and passing along to the rest of the world that you had a great time with us. Capt.Tom

Carlos and Friends

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On our last trip we set up for tuna. It was a textbook day starting off in the high 60's with light southeast winds and seas about 2 feet. Plenty of sun and a hell of a crew. The trip was for Mike Sandel and his wife Elaine. Along with him he also brought a couple ole cronies that had been tuna fishing before. We headed out for Big Southern. 25 miles into the trip we came across a shrimper that had his catch on the deck. We came close and he made it obvious that he was eager to trade a few baskets of cull off for a case of cervesa. Nice guys, I believe the boat was named "Sombrero". (Hat, Right?) Anyway, we made the trade and off for the last ten miles to our destination. John on the "Pelican" was anchored right on top of the rock, so I came up on the south side , threw over a little cull and set out lines as we drifted. Baits had just hit the water and the tuna were boiling. Five were fishing, ( I mean catching ) and it was no problemo keeping their rods bent through the entire drift. We ended up 2 miles away when we boated the last fish. The tuna stayed shaded under our boat the whole drift. I still had a basket of cull left when it was over and called everyone to watch as I threw it over. There must have been hundreds of blackfin down there. You just hate to leave it, you know what I mean? Well, it was 11:30 in the morning and my fisherpeople were worn out and ready to return to port. We backed in and unloaded 4 garbage cans full of fish, 31 blackfin tuna and 1 yellowfin. Incredible! After all the picture taking and a few "attaboys" we weighed in at 616 pounds. Definitely a trip to remember. Thanx Mike and Elaine (and of course,Suzanne and Melvin Garrett). Come back soon. I expect the tuna to hang around for the next three to four months and that should take away from the need to catch red snapper which won't be available in federal waters until April 21. Along with the blackfin tuna I would also expect some yellowfin, sharks, kings, vermillion snapper, and grouper sometime soon. Come join the fun. The water clears up about 20 miles offshore (as of Jan 31) and the kings were solid on Monday. Capt.Tom

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