New Years Day-Port Everglades

Ok, Started off crawling out of bed at 6:30 to be at Mike's boat by 7. Got picked up from Carlos(Visiting from the USAF) and after a brief stop of Publix for the essentials(Sandwiches, Beer, Ice, Sunblock) we made it on time. Upon arriving at Mike's, Vlad(the Crazy Russian) starts the day off by breaking the door to the dishwasher. This is just a preview of whats in stor for Vlad later in the day, but we will get to that later. Back to the morning. Get Mike's 2002 Grady White 283 Release that he just purchased as a sort of Christmas present for himself, loaded up up with our rods, gear, and food with no problems and we are off to 15th Street Marina to fill up on gas and get some advice from Dave the dock guy. Upon stopping at the marina Dave informs us of a weedline that he heard about about 12 miles offshore that might be holding some dolphin. Just what we want to hear as this is Carlos's first time fishing and nothing beats the excitement of running into a school of hungry dolphin! I get on the radio to see if Julie(The bait lady that sits in front of the marina) has any pilchards left. She gets on and says come over so we grab a pack of rigged Squid from Dave and head over and get our livies and we are off. Our original plan was to troll inshore over the reefs for some Wahoo or Kings. Since there was no wind bringing out the Kite was out of the question. I am still stuck on catching my first sail, but today it is not to be. Leaving Port Everglades, the seas are flat and the weather couldn't have been better. We settle on trolling the reefs for at least a half hour to try and catch a wahoo. We head north toward the Steeple and get our lines ready. Long line Ballyhooed Wahoo Express with a pink and white Mylar skirt, Next line Dead Ballyhoo with a Black and Purple skirt, Next Black and Purple Teaser , and the short a little 6 inch Orange and yellow Dolphin squid type lure. We zig-zag from about 300 to 100 for about a half hour and nothing. On the Radio we hear a guy landing a White Marlin and another guy landing a sailfish. With the weather and the seas looking so good we decide to pack it in and head offshore to look for the weeds that Dave was talking about. Heading due east from the steeple we run into the mother of weeds in about 750 Feet. Being Jan. 1 there aren't alot of boats out there so we pretty much have this weed patch to ourselves. We drop in our lines switching a couple of the lures and we end up having a Pink and white artificial squid long, skirted ballyhoo and rigged squid middle and the yellow and orange artificial short. Within 10 minutes we are hooked up on a little peanut dolphin which gets the blood pumping. We let Carlos fight the fish and release him. About another 10 minutes pass and we are hooked up again with what looks like the same peanut. After that we get a double hook with one keeper about 25 inches. We run to one of the larger we patches and spot a school of dolphin and decide to throw some live pilchards at them. These guys did not want anything to do with the live baits. Every cast they would come and see what was on the end of the hook and not want to eat. We tried some cut bait but these guys were not hungry. We continue to another patch and try the same and come away a little better. We land one more keeper and get two break offs due to Vlad not having his Drag set and Mike not realizing that he was dealing with such like tackle. But it was fun none the less and with all of the fish it kept us busy the whole day. At around noon we decide to call it a day offshore and head back in and set up a drift and try to get something in around 90 feet. We have about four pilchards left so we free spool two and drop two more deep. Unfortunately luck was not on our side and we were all pretty tired and hungry to we picked up and called it a day. Upon getting to Port Everglades we are about ready to enter the port when we hit this monster swell that throws the boat to a sharp left and in turn throws Vlad and Carlos off their seats with Carlos ending up on the floor of the boat and me lunging for Vlad as he is half way off the boat with a mouth full of saltwater. What a freaky moment that was as I thought Vlad was going over board and then thought that he was going to be hurt from hitting the side of the boat so hard. Good thing the Grady has cushions on the side of the boat or else Vlad's ribs could have been broken for sure. All in all a great day out on the ocean with two nice fish to show for it.