I tell ya, those 20 + lb mahi give one hell of a tussle. They turn their flat body to the side and act as a massive planer. By the time you get one next to the boat they are straight down and hard to pull up. I was so exhausted after every fight. I think we need something bigger than tld 25's next time!! I know I learned my lesson on the gaff situation. I have a 3ft gaff with a small hook that I bought at my grandfather's estate auction. I need a 6 ft with 5 inch hook offset. We would have had 2x more fish!! I knew I needed it before this trip by one of my buddies talked me out of it. I'm gonna kick his @ss!! I'm looking at the 6ft aftco w/ 5 inch offset. Looks like a really nice gaff.

So, what does a 70 lb black drum pull like?

Hey Blue let me know ahead of time I'm interested in going. I like dolphin fishing and I could get a crew to go or maybe we could get some of the V forum members to go and make up a crew om my boat.

Yeah baby that's what I'm talking about! The more the merrier IMO!!

Will do Garage. I thought about you and Stillrunning beforehand but never got around to the invitation part - my bad. I promise to do better next time.

Blue

I'll have to check in the shed, but I don;t think any of my gaffs have a 5" hook. That sounds a little big for fishi under 100#'s.

As for the 70# drum, it really depends on where you catch him. In protected waters they fight kinda like a pig. They root around on the bottom, are powerful, but once you get him started up don;t have that much stamina in my opinion. Now if you catch that fish at the mouth of the bay in a hard running tide from an anchored boat...you gots your hands full fo sho'.

Yeah I agree, the 5" hook part is not as important to me as the 6 foot length for reaching out. I think my current gaff has less than 2 inch offset - maybe 3 inches. At any rate it doesn't seem like enough offset to me.

Whooa BR, some fishing trip.

You and your crew have the V20 offshore trips down pat. Awesome job man!

:clap::clap:

Thanks Bass! We are still offshore rookies though. I've been to the stream on a big boat a handful of times but Iv'e only had mine offshore 2 days last year and 2 days this year so far - 4 trips total. We still have alot to learn. We've yet to get skunked so I'm definitely thankful for that aspect. Actually we've lost as many fish as we caught every time we went.

I still don't have the videos...another one of the guys has a cool pic of a freshly stuck fish on the gaff. I'll get it one of othese days...