What is the most interesting thing you have seen while offshore?

[granpafish]

I was in the area the day after a Coast Guard cutter was sunk in the Chesapeake Bay near the Potomac river. Probably 25-30 years ago. There were numerous guardsmen lost that nite. (double figures) Watching the recovery efforts was heartbreaking. The investigation showed that the CG turned in front of a South bound ship and was at fault as I recall. It was a clear nite and I don't think that they were ever able to figure out why they didn't realize that they were on a collsion course. Very sad.

[Bolton]

I passed a navy ship towing one of the solid roket boosters from the shuttle back to the cape that was pretty cool. Those MF's are BIG. Other than that, just a big whale shark surfaced near the boat off of Key Biscayne.

Bolton

[capt_dalton]

Fishing the Midnight Lump off of Venice, LA on a hot flat Feb. day with about 100 other boats. No fish in the slick, nothing happening anywhere. We hear the sound of a jet approaching. A single F-15 entertained the whole fleet with some pretty daring aerial antics. Way cool, it got the chatter going on the VHF.

A manta ray taking a leap and soaring farther than I thought, or knew they could.

Petting a whale shark while casting for tuna around him. He just came right to the side of the boat. I reached over and stroked it down it's back and so did another guy. They are very soft. Our other friend was on the bow fighting a tuna and we just sorta left him standed up there while we killed the engines and petted this gentle giant.

[CORALREEFER]

Bottom fishing by myself one day about 18 miles offshore. Seen something out of the corner of my eye, first reaction was cobia, get the bucktail jig on the spinning outfit! As my eyes focused, could tell it was no cobia, My boat is 23ft, and it was over 3/4 the length of the boat. As I was leaning over the gunnel trying to figure out what it was; that old saying, " We need a bigger boat" suddenly ran through my mind. I moved to the other side of the boat rather quickly, knees were shaking so bad I could hardly stand. After a minute or two I resumed fishing. Still to this day do not know for sure what it was, it's head was 1/2 as wide as the boat and it was probably the most graceful swimming creature I have ever seen. Great White! Maybe..... Whale shark? Just don't know for sure!!!!!

[boatfan]

A floating outhouse 12 miles off the beach.

Orca's

Telephone poles floating offshore.

Lost cargo container floating just under the surface.

[coastboater]

Great topic!

A deer swimming across St. Helena Sound.

And not too far from the same spot the locals can chime in about "Monkey Island". It's an island adjacent to St. Helena sound that is populated by a large # of Rhesus monkeys. They were originally used for research - I don't recall who owns it anymore. We would take apple slices and throw them on shore, near the "DO NOT FEED THE MONKEYS" sign, and they would come down out of the trees and fight like hell for the food.

[davidcambre]

While Cobia fishing off the Chandelier islands in Louisiana, we watched 4-5 F-16's doing manuevers ,dropping chafe, and breaking the sound barrier many times.

This happened to me twice, while fishing 25 miles out we had sparrows land on the boat, let us handle them, they stayed on the boat while we were running rigs. They both died after a couple of hours.

Also caught 2 Sea turtles in one day on heavy spinning gear-they like live croakers and live shrimp. Both were released unharmed(other than a brief thought of turtle sauce piquant).

about 20 sharks on a baitball off the mississippi coast.

Saw 2000-3000 mullet jump at the same time!

Last but not least is the 400#(est)Blue Marlin we leadered in my friends 19' Chapparal 40 miles off the coast of Louisiana.
We tried to tag him with a Snapper tag but he was just out of reach and we could not get him/her any closer than 4-5 feet from the boat.

I love being offshore!!!!!!!!!

[RaritanBayF225]

st. elmos fire.

[sabre]

Are the Squids allow to chime in on this?? In the Persian Gulf, saw what is referred to as the "floating beach". The sand is so fine, that after a dust storm it floats on the water. Saw thee largest ship in the world while escorting tankers out of the Persian Gulf. Biiig son of a gun. Many more to add, but it's not really fair when my boat was 400+ feet long, and we could head a bit further offshoe than most.





.....ooops, and how about a B-52 about 20 feet off the deck?

[BigBone]

Rogue wave, or what looked more like a vertical water wall, higher than the T-Top a few miles out of Bimini. Didn't go over it, just went right through it.

[Golden Dog]

We left Kennebunkport harbor early morning and the ocean was absolute glass. About a mile out a big flock of birds was sitting quietly on the surface with some bigger object sticking up in the middle of the birds. As we approached, we put her in idle and slowly floated up alongside the object. My brother and I went up to the bow and looked down in the water. We were staring right at a great white...absolutely amazing to see in person and up close. I was close enough that had we could have touched it with a boat hook. Coolest thing was it's size, we were on a 30' boat and with absolutely no exageration, the shark was 1/2 the length of the boat. It hung in the water there for 20 seconds or so and then turned under the boat and took off.

Only in hind sight, did we really think about what would have happened if we had had fallen over. Too much excitement to be scared, kinda like the time we ran into a black bear on the AT...that's another story.

[O'Yeah]

Well, not really off shore, but in the Mullica River/Great Bay area of southern NJ. Last spring the wife and I were heading out to fish & we saw a large bird flying with a fish in its talons. As we got closer, we realized that it was a Bald Eagle. It was now beng chased by 2 seagulls! As we watched the Eagle dropped the fish and flew off still being persued by the gulls! We went to where the fish dropped and found a 5.5lb Weakfish bleeding from a few puncture wounds, but other than that in good shape. Ended up being the only fish we netted that day.

[offshorebri]

Hudson Canyon two seasons ago....Overnight trip, a couple of guys fighting large tuna from a 8 foot inflatable with a 5 hp outboard...needless to say they were being towed around...

[dneal]

July 7th , my birthday 1979 my brother and I were fishing off the Content Key down in the Fla. Keys.
We were afishing about in about 30 ft. of water in a 18 ft canoe when I saw an hooked a 5 ft Barracuda, as soon as I set the hooks the fish made a beeline for the canoe at warp speed.
I yelled at brother Rick that the fish was going under the boat, It looked like a torpedo .
When the cuda got about 20 ft. out it made the jump over the canoe and my brother had to lean forward in the front to avoid being hit in the head by a large fish going about 40 mph with a 9 in. Rapala Magmun pulg in its mouth.



The first thing I said to Rick was " I got to the boat , where were you with the net "

Man I wish I had a photo of that.


Dave

[WildLines]

This was 60 Miles East of Jacksonville, FL and he was still headed Due East when we left.






Seen several Submarines and one neat day was 120 mile off shore and an aircraft carriers & several battle ships doing manuvers, we got 'buzzed' no less than 6 times. We had quite the private air show!

[maestro]

Whales off North Carolina. We got so close you could smell their breath when they surfaced. BTW, they have nasty breath, like dead fish.

Dead Whale off of Virginia. Big one too. Had 100's maybe even 1000's of dolphin under it.

Military planes doing maneuvers off of Virginia. All kinds including some sonic booms.

Trolling 30 fathoms for tuna one day last summer. 2 hours...no bites. Had a squid daisy chain on a flat line right in the prop wash. This white marlin shoots straight up into the air, 6 feet from the boat, with the whole daisy chain hanging out of his mouth! Almost yanked the rod out of the holder. The whole fish was completely airborn and he landed on top of the short rigger line and popped the clip. Never did hook him.

[solarfry]

Back in early 2000 saw a sports car tooling along the flats in the keys in front of inlet to Pennekamp. I still have a picture of it.

[Cajunken]

While surfacing from a dive in the Gulf years back I spotted a Sunfish. I didn't know what it was at the time and would have stayed around longer but I was running out of air (and a bit scared). It wasn't until years later when that I realized what a great sighting this was. Something we refer to as a "lifer"

[WEAKFISH]

I've seen alot of these things people have mentioned. I fish out of Townsends Inlet South Jersey. The coolest thing of them all for me was a GIANT sunfish. I've seen several

One litterally came up to the side of the boat several times to check us out. Turned on his side with his big eye and slowly swam away. So cool.

Sharks swimming on the surface under the boat, dolphins, several species of whales and even a sea lion. But the coolest was the sunfish.

[Bullshipper]

Attacked by whale

Hurrican Lester offshore in 18' CC

80' swells, 35' boat

Surfing 30-40 footers, Wiamea

and a few large fish I have caught.