Whale stink breath!

[JHbowhunter]

Departed SR inlet around 6:20 am... Plan was to head N and off about 3 miles out, troll for anything with a fork tail or blues, then fluke... Well the trolling sucked in crystal clear waters just a frigate mackerel for our efforts. ...    Planned on stalking Hammer at some point so I could maybe get at least one keeper in the box...   Turns out I drove over the fish, ended up 1.5 miles NE of him.   The hump I was on was a fish a minute, but either 17" fluke or the biggest skates I ever caught in my life.   Dan told me where he was so I motored on over and nearly tied up to his stern.   BAM - 3 keepers to 25" it was wild for about 30 minutes then drizzled down to short city - as the drift just got better and better, then the bite seemed to shut down completely for us and everyone else.   I ran back N to see if that finger/hump was still biting and nothing.. Went to the rocks - dead.   Saw 50 boats out on the rattlesnake - ran out there too.    I mean we picked at a few shorts here and there but it sucked.   By 1:30 the wind was getting a bit snotty for a 19' skiff, so I was able to cruise to the Red Church area at about 17 mph and just a short or two there, and now the wind was CRANKING out of the South. I hitched a ride on the back of the Captain Cal to get back home - that ship is slow as molasses only going 11 MPH on average but it sure smoothed the ride.    Ran into massive schools of bunker so decided to break off from the party boat and troll the last 2.5 miles.    Good call we had a blast with 3-5# bluefish, that were thick all the way to the inlet.   By that time seas were up to 5' at times.   I guess we boated 12-15 in short time, keeping the smallest for eating and then the biggest that was gill hooked. 

Special thanks to Dan for checking on us (pulled right up) as we were still 1.5 miles from inlet and reeling in bluefish.  He said "as long as you are safe".      Good to have a network of friends out there! 

But that was NOT the highlight of the trip.      This gets better.       Right before I decided to run back South earlier in the morning to stalk Hammer,  I asked my cousin-in-law Todd if he #### his pants... The acrid smell was bad...    Combination of a over-full porta-john in July and a flat of spoiled bunker..     So we started running south and all of a sudden 'Thar she blows"...     A whale was fishing and working the area between us... It surfaced a few times and blew and the stink was even worse!     It all made sense now - we were at least 3/4 mile down wind of that whale earlier and was smelling it's breath!         We followed it around for a while and took some videos...   What a majestic creature.   

Can anyone identify this whale - I always figure they are humpbacks but not sure this solitary specimen was one?

Edited September 7, 2020 by JHbowhunter

[Live to Hunt]

Nice Jacko 

[Buck154]

Cool. Yeah we have had that a couple of times the whales blows up wind and the fish breath is bad.

[hammer4reel]

You made the day of it . I knew was going to be a tough ride home for you .

but also knew the corner of the hook in those conditions would have been way worse .

you leaving from SRI was by far the better choice .

I think the fluke are moving off . It was stacked where we were Saturday .

with very good drift conditions the bite should have gotten better with that tide coming in .

crazy how fast it can change out there 

[tpr1921]

Way to work the water.

[bucky]

Nice job,but fish south

Edited September 7, 2020 by bucky

[Lunatic]

It is a humpback