Balloons for Goliaths

In this episode of BlacktipH, Josh Jorgensen and Capt. Wes Reeder head offshore to do the Balloon Fishing Challenge. The water was very green and dirty from the Okeechobee freshwater dumping. After catching bait, both Josh and Wes deployed their balloons. On our first drift, Josh's balloon got yanked underwater and the fish was hooked! After a short fight, Josh landed the first species, a false albacore (aka bonito). On our next drift, both balloons got hit at nearly the same time! Josh was hooked up with the second fish of the day. Josh was hoping for a cobia, but the fish turned out to be a bonito. Both Wes and Josh caught a total of five bonito before they decided to move to another location. We could not escape the nasty green water from Okeechobee. Sailfish, dolphin, kingfish, wahoo and other pelagic species don't usually hang around in the dirty green water. We decided to make the best of our day and catch some goliath groupers using balloons. The goliath groupers were fired up! They were coming to the surface to eat baits in 60ft of water! We managed to land two goliath groupers before calling it a day.