Las Cucarachas (Segunda parte) 2/16

[Latimeria]

Planned on a bug hunt with Shaun after work on Friday. Unfortunately, he had no bait but I had plenty.  I pulled it out on Thursday to make sure it was defrosted by the time I got home.



I got home from work and started the process of making the special lobster recipes. 



He's been having some good trips of late, so confidence was high.  Only issue was he lost 2 nets on the last trip, so I brought my two eclipse nets to fill the 10-hoop max.  I had some repairs to do as all of my nets were shredded from something.  Wear, Mice, Sun.... maybe all 3.  Not ideal, but Dacron made for ggod repair thread.



We get down to the bay later than expected, but there was a hell of a lot more people than anticpated.  Probably 8 boats in close proximity and a few kayaks.  For the most part, everyone was civil and there wasn't a lot of dropping on other nets.



It was super cool out there as the Bioluminescence was nuts!  Watching dolphin and huge schools of macks swimming in it around the boat made for some spectacular viewing while we waited to pull hoops.

It was a really slow start, and it was hard finding any bugs, so we decided to zig a bit and get away from everyone.  Well, we slowly picked up a legal here and there with SOOOOO many bugs being a C-Hair short!  I'm talking If I had a few beers in me, I could have been talked into them being legal, but they all went back.  At least the legals were DEFINITE legals and surprisingly big for this time of year.



Also, I was shocked on how many rock crab were crawling!  We probably picked up about 80-100, but only a handful were worth keeping.

We had 10 in this net and 7 were 1/10th of an inch short with 1 legal and a few easily smaller ones.



We hooped until 2:00 am and called it quits.  We only ended up with 8 legal bugs and 120 shorts.  Still, the quality made it all worth it.



I have to say I'm sore as sh!t today.  I probably didn't do my hernia any favors, but thankfully have my Sx date set for March 7th.  Time to increase my cholesterol.



I hope to get one last trip out and make sure the freezer is filled before my Sx.  Light duty will prevent any more trips before the end of the season, so strike while the iron is hot!



Thanks for reading and today was a wash for me.  I can't believe how sore I am.  LOL

[vdisney]

Looks good to me Tom, but 2 in the morning?!?  That's about 7 hours after my bedtime   

[jrodda]

That's a lot of short bugs. Good on ya getting a few more keepers, hope the hernia isn't too bothered. That part sounds rough.

[Latimeria]

That's a lot of short bugs. Good on ya getting a few more keepers, hope the hernia isn't too bothered. That part sounds rough.

Hernia definitely got a little worse after this trip.  Only 2 more weeks until I can get this damn thing repaired.

I want to get out bug hunting one more time before then, but my wife is complaining about lobster now.....  No matter, she'll have to just deal.  lol