 This week, on the Sportsman Experience, Jim is joined by three buddies, Alex, Steven, and Shane. There he is! There he is! Another one! Alright, ready? Let's get that drag. Woo! There you go! They're taking off on a 70-mile run out of Charleston, South Carolina to fish the Gulf Stream, where the dolphin, otherwise known as Mahi Mahi, have been running heavily for the last few days. With Mahi on their mind, they're also going to be prepared for large billfish like blue marlin and sailfish. Fishing is a lifelong passion. The pursuit of new species and lifelong memories is why we are up before dawn and coming home salty in the evening. My name's Jim Isaac, lifelong fisherman, boat builder, and student of the water. Join us as we bring along family and friends to pursue new waters, learn new methods, and enjoy our time together outdoors. Welcome to the Sportsman Experience. Jim is down at the dock, getting things prepared for tomorrow's trip offshore. A trip like this takes a good bit of planning and preparation. He's meeting his buddy Steven and heading to Toller's Cove Marina to fill up the boat, and once that's complete, the bait rigging can begin. Alright, so we just picked up Steven. We've got Steven on the boat and his daughter, Millie, we're about to go get some fuel and get back to the dock and try to rig some baits. We're just out here, leaving for Milo Palms and heading to Toller's Cove to get some fuel. Tyler going out tomorrow? Is there anybody from Hellscar to Toller's Cove? No, a lot of guys are fishing tomorrow though. My brother's fishing today, so he'll be able to give us good reports and see what's going on. Especially Slick, so it's going to be the whole fleet out there tomorrow. I don't imagine the dolphin have gone anywhere. The bite's been so hot. I don't imagine we're going to get into them pretty good. It should be a good ride though. I don't think we'll have any problems. Yeah, I'll probably just run out in the morning. That works for you. Yeah. Oh yeah. I like my sleep in the morning. Right now. I couldn't get it last time. We got pounded last time. Yeah, so we're about to pull up the Toller's Fuel Dock. We've got about 30% fuel on the boat right now. The boat holds about 330 usable gallons. So we're going to be sitting here for a little bit, fueling up. Alright, Steven, how are we looking? Half a tank, 52% right now. The fills are rolling into one tank. We're hopefully making some way here. Yeah, it's jumping up a little bit at a time. We're filming fishing episodes for our sportsman. He's like a tick. He just sits on my shoulder everywhere I go. Yeah, just pretend like he's not there. Alright, we all fueled up and we're heading back to the house and ready to go tomorrow. With the boat fueled and everyone eager for a trip offshore tomorrow, Jim is going to rig up some baits where they've got everything they need to have a great trip and put some fish in the boxes. Alright, so we're just down here prepping the boat to fish tomorrow. We're just going to go through a couple of rigs we use. We're basically just using pin rigs for these valleyhue, little small rubber bands. We're using a combination of like squid style heads, weighted to chugger heads. Yeah, I kind of put a variety out and then I'll just go from there and pin on what we start catching. Alright, so we're going to start this rig I always do about an arm length and a half of a hundred pound. Start out with a hook. You've got two crimps, nose pin and a lure. So all you're going to do is slide it through your crimp. Make sure your crimp is the right size to your mono. Go through your hook eye. You're going to go back through your crimp. Come tight. You don't want it to be all the way up against the hook. You want to leave a little bit of room for it to move there. Then what I'm going to do is take my nose pin here. I'm going to slide it in between the two pieces of mono and you're going to crimp that in between the crimps here. Flip your nose pin up. Your nose pin will sit right there straight up in front of the hook. Now go through the bellyhook. Once you get down with that, you're going to take your mono. Come through your lure. It depends on you. You can put whatever kind of lure head in here you want. Go ahead and slide it away down to the hook. This will be your loop end that you hook your swivel into from your mainline. Come back. Go through the crimp. Come back through. Same thing. Just crimp it right in the middle. Don't do it too tight. Make sure it's on the appropriate setting, appropriate crimp size. That's all there is to it. Alright, so what you're going to do is come through right between the gills on the bellyhook. You run back where your hook comes out. Your hook eye is going to sit kind of right below the eyes of the actual bellyhook. You're going to take your pin. You're going to come up dead in the middle and you're going to go up through the middle of the top beak until your pin comes out. Take a rubber band. You're going to hook it over the nose pin. Now what I do is I go around it once. I go around it twice and hook it back over the top of the nose pin. Let me just seat your bait right down on there. You're good to go. Alright, baits are all done. We're going to take the trays. Put them in the cooler. Start cleaning up a little bit and we're ready to go for tomorrow. So, we'll see you tomorrow. With a 70 mile run ahead of them, Jim and the guys must get started before sunrise. They're already loading the boat and preparing for a long run. Let's go boys. I'm going to go catch some mahi mahi. Where's Shane? You know Shane. Late as always. Always late getting snacks. That's right. Yeah. He's always dragging the time. The guys are slow. You've got to feed the big man, right? Yeah. You've got to eat. Alright, welcome back everybody. We're out here. It's May 17th, about 4.30 in the morning. We're about to pull away from the dock. We've got pretty calm conditions out there. It's like two and a half feet. We've got eight seconds somewhere in there. We've got Shane, Alex and Stephen here with us today fishing. Hopefully we can get out there and wear out some dolphin. Maybe see a billfish. Fishing has been really good lately. So, we're going to give it a good go. Let's get it. Damn, a little bit early in the morning. Nothing like it. The only thing with all the fun stuff is early. You know? Yeah. We're going to go kill a duck. We've got to wake up early. Yeah, I didn't want to get out in the bed this morning. Hey, what's going on everybody? Today we're fishing on the Open 352. This is Sportsman's flagship model. This boat's built pretty much to be a fishing machine and also have a lot of family comforts as well. We have the big twin aquarium live wells in the rear for holding all your bait. We also have the fold down seat that's removable. So, if you want to fish, you can throw a cooler there. Take the seat out. We also have the rear facing seat here. Perfect for watching baits sitting back here when you're trolling. It's a great extra seat. We've got a nice sized sink and a prep station here. Ample amount of rod holders on this boat. Lots of places to store your rods. We've got four across the transom. We've got lots right here on the back of the teetop frame. All right, so coming back up here to the helm, we've got three nice release marine seats here. Nice fold down bolsters. This boat's real comfortable running out with three people in it. We've got the 22 inch garments. This boat actually has the AC nice and cozy on a day like today which is no wind. Plenty of room for three people to sit behind the glass and stay dry. Up here at the front, we have the nice chase lounge up here. Perfect spot for lounging while you're trolling or while you're bottom fishing. Tons of room up here in the bow. You can fish pretty much all around this thing. It's great for that. All right, that's the Open 352 walkthrough and we're going to get back to some fishing. With the boat loaded down, the guys are ready to take off. Leaving before sunrise means navigating in the dark. Having knowledge of the waterways, equipment on your boat like Garmin radar systems and professional radar training is essential to staying safe on runs like this. The sun's just coming up and the guys have found a nice weed line, lots of birds and a ton of bait. It's time to slow the boat down, get lines in the water and be ready to start hooking fish. We keep heading offshore like this. That's what I want to do, just to figure out where the fish are. I want enough having to get through. If you look in the water, it's all submerged right here. Back there, there's some big paths. I kind of go out here and just head out that way. We just get out here. The ocean is super slick. There's a big weed line right here. It's still pretty submerged because it's early, but it will come up as the heat comes up. Yeah, we just got lines out so we're going to try to find our rhythm here and find our groove. We're trolling offshore right now. We started at about 250 feet of water. The water is still a bit cool. It's only 71 and a half. We're looking for like 73, 74. So we're going to try to keep going offshore until we find it. This rips kind of heading straight offshore so we're trolling along it. Look, where did it go? Oh, there it is. Oh, great, great. It's off and I can't tell where it was. Oh, there it is. So just keep it supported straight and then back off a little bit more. All right. All right, cool. Then we move it forward. All right, get them, boys. Yeah, the boys. Nice fish. Awesome. Oh, yeah. On the chugger head we rigged yesterday too. One in the box. Oh, you're in my ear. Oh, shit. I gave the man a piercing. Come on, Shane. Don't let that thing whoop you now. All right, we got the skunk out. We got the two guys that are working out over here fighting these fish. They gas out on us. We're not going to promote their program. Look at that. Pretty fish. Pretty fish. That's a good start. Nice little bull. All right, Alan, get us back up to seven knots. All right, come on. Come on back up. Springtime off the coast of South Carolina is prime time for the highly sought after mahi mahi. This flaky white fish is the perfect meat for any seafood dish from tacos to sandwiches or just a nice blackened filet. Mahi, also known as dolphin, begin to school in early to mid-springtime and at times can be overwhelming for anglers as the bite is so strong. Over the last few weeks, reports have been very good and anglers have been bringing in limits daily. Jim and the guys are hopeful as they've already stuck two nice dolphin within the first few minutes. All right, so fish comes up and hits it. You pick up the rod. The fish isn't there. Go ahead and just dump him. You'll be able to feel the fish start hitting it if he comes back at it. Once he's got it, you want to slowly pull your drag forward and just come up. Don't jerk it or anything like that. Just slowly pull it forward, not a hook of fish. If he still missed it again, you can do it again or you can just stop. See how many times it goes back out after it. Yeah. Oh, yeah, here he comes. Ready? Here he goes on the long rigger. Where is he? He's right there. He just came in. He came in hot, jumping. Yeah, it's all right. There, Alex, grab this. I'll be right back here. Jim, you want me to slow down a little bit? Uh, yeah, a little bit. Just let him run with it? No, try it. Give him a minute. Don't put too much pressure on him. Just give him a minute. There you go. Yeah, the weeds suck right here. All right, slow it down a little bit, Jim. First off in there? First off in there? Yeah. Good. Just keep that line tight. That's a nice little workout. That's a good workout. Yeah. He's right there. Really getting in your face with that camera, huh? He's tired. Look at him. Oh, you don't ward him all out. He wants to headache and nap. All right, he's going to come in here at Madison Hill. Look how pretty that fish is. Oh, he's good, Coach. There you go. He's got something to drop it through him. Nice and easy. Good job. See him spit up a whole gallon of water? Thank you. First mahi. Yeah. Hold him out a little bit. He looks more better when you hold him out. This is awesome. Yeah. Geez, the power on this thing. Yeah. That's work right there. That's work. That was a lot of fun. You were hugging that man, eh? Yeah, man got his first dolphin. He's happy. He's stoked. Stoked. Let's catch some more. We'll get some more. We just came back in shallow. So hopefully we'll get back on him again. We had a little lull there for a minute, but I think we're going to circle around this way, keep going back in shallow and trying to find a fish again. Oh, did you just jump? Is it? Yeah. Show these people what a mahi looks like. He about got him. Just take your teeth like this. Nice job, boys. There's a few birds over here. A couple of them. They're not necessarily the right kind, but they're eating on something. Look at that one of the ones in the middle are snacking hard. Oh, here we go. Here we go. There we go. All right, boys. Here we go. All right, all right. Let's see what else we can get. Got it? Yep. All right, bump us back with the hair. Yes, sir. All right, boys. Right there. Pretty fish. That's all cow. Sit on the flat. Yeah. Really? Don't like it. With five dolphin on the boat and the bite slowing down, the guys have decided to head in shore to a wreck known for big red snapper, along with trigger fish, bee liners, and grouper. If they start catching red snapper, they must be released due to a federal regulated season. But anything else is fair game and just adds a variety of flavor to the box. And of all the fish that we can catch off from bottom fishing, what is the most tasty? I think trigger fish is really good. But snapper, red snapper, anything of a snapper family would be good. I love catching big red snapper just to catch them. I mean, we caught a bunch the last time. Not big, not huge ones, but we caught some nice ones. You can't keep them, right? But not the season, but trigger fish, vermilion, bee liners, it was all good eating. Sounds good. Oh, yeah. Red snapper. Pretty fish there. What do we got? Red snapper. Catch and release her. Catch and release her. Catch and release her. Another one. We got another one. Big. The old endangered red snapper. Yeah. There are two drops on dead bait. We catch red snapper. That was a nice one right there. That is a nice one. After catching a few nice red snapper, the guys started to really get into the bee liners, also known as vermilion snapper. Something else for the box. We're looking for meat. These are a type of snapper that have no season and have a very similar taste to red snapper, making them a great species to target for lots of action and bonus meat to take home. All right. Three. And number four right here. That's that. Making a bee line for the box. That's right. All right. Yeah, nice feel on her. All right. You know they be tasting good. Survey says. Survey says. It's a bye. Woo. Nice big old roll. We're on a roll. We're starting to pick up a few. So our producer, Michael, decides he wants to catch a few fish. He hands me the camera. He takes the rod. I get to ask him all the goofy questions. He always asks me when I'm fishing. Trigger fish. Oh, man. Steven's away. Steve. All right, Michael. Tell me what you think. Tell me why the trigger fish teeth are so sharp. I don't know. I don't know anything about it, but they got a trigger on the back. So it's not every day the producer gets to be on camera. So I knew I would be catching a ton of grief once Jim picked up. Now I'm feeling the pain of answering those silly questions on the fly. Don't drop it. What would you say would happen, Michael, if the camera were to drop? I'd dive in. What? The thing is done for once it gets wet. All right, Alex. Come on. Watch that thing in. There you go. There you go. There you go. There you go. Nice one. Nice fish. Hold them out. Hold them out like you mean it, right? All right, I'll tilt the tail this way. Drop your other hand. Drop it down. There you go. Lower it. All right. With several nice dolphin and a ton of b-liners in the box, it's time for the guys to make the long run back, get the boat cleaned up, fillet some fish, and make it home to the wives and kids for dinner. All right, everybody. We just got done cleaning the boat, cleaning the fish, put everything up. We're all about to hit the road. Everybody's hungry, tired. You know, we had a great day out there. We caught some fish. We got to bring some meat home. Everybody had a great time. We had some first catch some dolphins. So what more can you ask for? You know, we had a great ride on a great boat. It's all around good experience. We'll see you guys on the next one.