Tortugas Liveaboard

Help on different Boatless Fishing locations.
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mmcauliffe
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Tortugas Liveaboard

Post by mmcauliffe »

So I'm going on one of these liveaboards to the Tortugas in a couple weeks...gettting jacked as you can imagine.

What should I pick up (if anything) in the way of live or dead bait before I board the boat? I know they supply (some) bait and we will be catching local stuff on sabiki's but should I purchase any additional baits? Crabs, that sorta thing? And where would be the best place to do this?

Bait aside, is there anything that isn't obvious that you may have found usefull that I shoud bring along? I have a bait bucket with a battery powered bubbler. They have warned us about no avalable 110v outlets.
Last edited by mmcauliffe on Sun Nov 01, 2009 4:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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fishnfool73
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Re: Tortugas Liveaboard

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Which boat ? Do they have a livewell for you to use ? Live pinfish are a decent bait that is easy to pick up the morning of your trip. Fresh dead mackeral, ladyfish, googleeyes, herring, flying fish, and ballyhoo are all good baits to bring.
Dreaming the dream that one day I can be as good as some of the boatless pros and catch some 12 inch mangrove snapper.

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Re: Tortugas Liveaboard

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Which boat?
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Re: Tortugas Liveaboard

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crashmister wrote:Which boat?
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Re: Tortugas Liveaboard

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fishnfool73 wrote:Which boat ? Do they have a livewell for you to use ? Live pinfish are a decent bait that is easy to pick up the morning of your trip. Fresh dead mackeral, ladyfish, googleeyes, herring, flying fish, and ballyhoo are all good baits to bring.
They make no mention of a community live well, or any live well for that matter.
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Re: Tortugas Liveaboard

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They have a community live well but unless you are fishing next to it , at time bait disappears from it. Get some fresh dead mackeral either kingfish or Spainish, ladyfish, googleeyes or ballyhoo and you'll be fine. I have written a novel on this boat and what you need for it as well as how to fish it. Use the search feature and read up on it and feel free to ask any more specific questions if you have them after reading the twenty or so articles I have written on the subject.
Dreaming the dream that one day I can be as good as some of the boatless pros and catch some 12 inch mangrove snapper.

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mmcauliffe
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Re: Tortugas Liveaboard

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fishnfool73 wrote:They have a community live well but unless you are fishing next to it , at time bait disappears from it.
Nice to know they do have a live well and some good advise there too, thanks

fishnfool73 wrote: I have written a novel on this boat and what you need for it as well as how to fish it. Use the search feature and read up on it and feel free to ask any more specific questions if you have them after reading the twenty or so articles I have written on the subject.
I did a search and found some of your posts, some good info there. Looks like you guys had a blast in '08. Any plans on another "boatless" trip?

Where is the closest decent bait shop. Didn't I hear of a new one in Key Largo that seemed to have a variety of baits?
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PhishingPhanatic
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Re: Tortugas Liveaboard

Post by PhishingPhanatic »

Yellow Bait House in Key Largo sometimes has fresh gogs, speedos and flyers. You can get fresh ballyhoo at most bait shops in the Keys.
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mmcauliffe
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Re: Tortugas Liveaboard

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PhishingPhanatic wrote:Yellow Bait House in Key Largo sometimes has fresh gogs, speedos and flyers. You can get fresh ballyhoo at most bait shops in the Keys.
Thanks....googled them and got their address and phone no. :D I'll call them on my way down. I don't think I'm going to have time to fish up my own bait before leaving Pompano.

I'm bringing a light rod and a variety of sabiki rigs onboard but it sound like that may be a waist of time.
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Re: Tortugas Liveaboard

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I would leave the small bait rod home. You will need a stout rod to catch bait. Buy a goggle eyes sabiki and if they are thick you can catch them 6-8 at a time.
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Re: Tortugas Liveaboard

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bolo wrote:I would leave the small bait rod home. You will need a stout rod to catch bait. Buy a goggle eyes sabiki and if they are thick you can catch them 6-8 at a time.
:stupid: I was using my 20 lb spinner to catch gogs and they were still pulling drag when you have 6 of them on at the same time. Ask the captain or mate if they are marking bait at night.
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mmcauliffe
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Re: Tortugas Liveaboard

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bolo wrote:I would leave the small bait rod home. You will need a stout rod to catch bait. Buy a goggle eyes sabiki and if they are thick you can catch them 6-8 at a time.
K - between your post and Phishing's sounds like if I want to try and catch bait I can use my 4500 baitrunner. I have 20lb mono on it now and planned on bringing at least one of these anyway so I'll take the advise and leave the ligher spinning rod at home. One less thing to mess with.

I have 2 of the bigger sabiki (green) rigs. Their made by Hayabusa but the description is written in a language I can only best describe as asian, bought them at BPS...you all have seen them there, so I'm not sure what "exactly" the sizes are but they are considerably larger than your typical #6 rig.

Thnaks for the input :)
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Re: Tortugas Liveaboard

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I use the one with the yellow label with bait picture drawn on it. It should say Goggle Eyes sabaki. I use the green one and red and blue one that looks like small squid.
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mmcauliffe
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Re: Tortugas Liveaboard

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Everybody, thanks a bunch for the info and advise, much appreciated.

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Re: Tortugas Liveaboard

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Packing the van this morning, leaving straight form work this evening and crashing at the Blue Fin Inn tonight before boarding FFF tomorrow. I haven't been this excited about a long weekend in quite awhile :bounce:
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Re: Tortugas Liveaboard

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mmcauliffe wrote:Packing the van this morning, leaving straight form work this evening and crashing at the Blue Fin Inn tonight before boarding FFF tomorrow. I haven't been this excited about a long weekend in quite awhile :bounce:
mmc; Good luck Dude! Don't forget your camera. The wind died down late Tue so it should be good.
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Re: Tortugas Liveaboard

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Blue Fin is a great place for the price ! Good Luck with your trip :reeling:
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mmcauliffe
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Re: Tortugas Liveaboard

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Well.....that was fun!! :cheers:

Left work a couple hours early and headed south. Stayed the night at the Blue Fin Inn. Key West really isn't that far but spending the night halfway down just seems to make my long weekend off just a little more like a vacation. Just FYI for those curious, I thought the Blue Fin Inn was a good value ($39.00/night) definitely nothing fancy but it was clean, 1/2 mile form the Bass Pro and lots of places very close for dinner and breakfast.

"GET TO THE FISHING PART!!" you say.....okay, okay

The boat left the harbor around 10:45A, we had lines in the water around 3:00P

This is all new to me so I was happy with catching anything…

I hooked into a nice Yellow Eye Snapper in just the first few minutes of fishing, then another. OK, I have fish in the cooler!! We moved the boat a couple times looking for Mutton Snappers. I latched onto an Amber Jack that ran on me well over a ½ dozen times. My arms were getting pretty damn tired lol. I got it to the surface and Adam (one of the mates) gaffed it. He said it weighed between 50-55lbs. That is the biggest fish, by far, that I have ever caught. Remember, I’m a Walleye fisherman from Michigan that moved to Pompano Beach this past Feb :D

After the Battle Royal with the AJ I went up top and had a few beers, dinner and crashed ‘til the next morning.

Some of these guys are hard core, I think there were one or two that may have slept for 2-3 hours the entire trip lol.

Next day we had a lot of current. Captain wanted to put us on Mutton Snappers and Grouper but the current caused a lot of snags on the bottom and a lot of tangles. Everybody was cool with the tangle issue, it was happening to everybody so patience was the word of the day. I caught one really nice Mutton and a couple nice Yellow Tails. Everybody was catching fish, not filling any limits but a variety of fish were caught throughout the day. AJ’s, Kings, Mac’s, Gag Groupers, Strawberry Groupers (Rock Hinds) Triggerfish, Yellow Eye, Yellow Tail’s and a few others that escape me now.

That night we went a little shallower, everybody wanted to fill coolers so went after Yellow Tails which were plentiful enough.

I caught a Googleye of all things, right through the lip on a 6/0 circle hook baited with a big chunk of Ballyhoo on my 4/0 rod. The mate said “I’d re-hook that thing and send it right back down” which is exactly what I did. Five, ten minutes later my rod doubled over and the drag started screaming. It was all I could do to hang on. I kept thinking….”did I do a good job on all my knots? How frayed is my leader?” Well, after quite a battle, albeit short, I got cut off. The knots held, clean break  Never saw what it was. Mates thought either a nice Grouper or the way it ran more likely a shark.

Fished a little more for Yellow Tails and called it a night after a much needed shower.

What a fun time!! The weather was perfect, I learned a ton about bottom saltwater fishing, made some new fishing buddies and have a good amount of fillets vacuum bagged in my freezer…..

Good times!!!

I’ll try and get some pic’s up later :reeling:
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Re: Tortugas Liveaboard

Post by crashmister »

Great report! Can't wait for the pics
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PhishingPhanatic
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Re: Tortugas Liveaboard

Post by PhishingPhanatic »

Sounds like a fun trip, thanks for the report.
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Re: Tortugas Liveaboard

Post by permitchaser »

nice report :D pics
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