Virgin Wreck Hunt

[VikingFleet]

01/10/06 <br />44 hr Virgin Wreck Trip…this trip started out a little slow but ended up with us having every fish box full, the first two drops gave us 1 gag grouper and a bunch of nice red grouper. <br />We then fished an Air Force tower and caught grouper, snapper and big amberjacks, this bite lasted until sunrise. We made a twenty mile move and fished on some of the many ledges of the Middle Grounds. Almost every drop gave us a decent pick of grouper and snapper. Around 3:00 pm we got a blast of very large Red Drum (AKA redfish); all were released promptly due to us being in federal waters and these fish being well over the slot size. Just after that we got a charge of Big Black fin tuna; out of many bites we landed 13 of them. <br />Just before sunset we took another ride and went to the wreck for the sundown bite, the bite was not insane like we had anticipated, but was very steady for several hours giving us many gag grouper, some scamp grouper and lane, yellowtail, mangrove, large vermillion snappers and a mako shark of about 125lbs that narrowly escaped the three gaffs that we had ready for him. <br />The totals were 41 passengers (Capt Paul, Capt Steven Sr, Capt Steven Jr, Capt Carl and 1 guest of mine) 93 gags to 23 lbs, 36 red grouper to 15 lbs, 17 scamps to 9 lbs,13 black fin tuna to 25lbs, 29 amberjack to 60 lbs, one 30lb king mackerel and over 900 mangrove, lane, yellowtail and vermillion snapper. <br />The jackpot winners were Danny Rodriguez from San Pedro C.A with a 22 lb gag grouper, Mike Haleiko from Island Park N.Y with a nice mangrove snapper, and Mike Revell from Monteverde FL with a 60 lb Amberjack. <br />Mike has a real knack for catching big Amberjack, last year he got one over 65 lbs. This Trip was a slammer by anyones standard, oh and by the way… the weather was great!!!!! <br />We’ll have more pics on www.vikingfleet.com soon.