longcast
Well-Known Angler
Those of you who know me may have heard I injured my knee a month ago and progress has been slow. I am on my second doctor and the MRI on Friday will let us know the next steps.
My brother in law has had some issues with his boat, and a dear friend from my past had some maintenance issues with his boat and they wanted to fish this fantastic weather today. The tell me that I will not have to do a thing so let's get your sorry ass out on the water on your boat. Alright, let's go! We meet up for a 530 launch and as they promised, I only needed to step aboard and drive the boat. So we make are way out of the canal and start at a spot in the eastern part of the bay and are greeted by some very short fluke. Two drifts and I could tell the consensus was to get out on a flat ocean and get to the deep.
We get to the reef and it is gorgeous. One thing. Almost no drift. I cannot take credit but heard of some success during such a situation so put the boat up on the downside edges and the game was on. No drifting and dreaming! Fluke started biting immediately, but had to be on the downside edges. The boat barely moved and we continued to catch. Where were all these thick 19 inch fish a couple days ago????
My friend gets a hit and the rod doubles over and stays there. I was told to stay at the helm and my brother in law took net duties but once the net snags the dropper, well, need I say more. That fish was all of 5 pounds easy. A bit of a quiet moment but we got our spirits back pretty quickly. Same person next drop and the rod again doubles over to only get the fish to within 10 feet of the surface and out pops the hook. Another 5 pounder looking fish. Yikes, we are cursed!
We regained our composure and my time came and the hit was savage. Down goes the Palmarius 1 spinning rod and stays down. I gain some line and the drag starts ripping!! Now I am thinking maybe a skate or something. There have been tons of the cow nose rays in town. Finally a couple massive headshakes give me the weak knee feeling and I gain line slowly. Up it comes as I am trying not to pump the rod or reel to fast. I look at my brother in law with the net in hand and see a look in his eye that says "DON"T LOOK DOWN" and continue bringing it up. Treated it like any fish and he slid the net under it without any boat side antics. That thick fish pulled the scale to 7 lbs 1oz. Perfect!
Tide slacks and the fluke do too. Doing our best to stay focused and a swirl makes us look and my ever persistent brother in law quickly cast an AVA 17 at it and BANG, game on with a green bonita!! We all start casting jigs and the violent hits on the surface were incredible. We iced 6 of those bad boys in short order. Took almost 10 minutes to clean the blood from every crack in the boat.
Now the tide is moving and the wind picks up with very little results. I mean, granted, we are picking away at some sea bass along the way. We did manage 3 17 inch fish for the ice.
What to do now. Went back to the same pieces from earlier and fished the opposite side drops using the spot lock. Fishing basically on an anchor, we start picking again and iced some more keepers.
Finished the day with 6 keepers with the large belonging to me at 7 lbs 1 oz.
6 green bonita
3 sea bass
1 lone triggerfish
1 lone bluefish
Now that's a day!!
Oh, and some left over ice on the knee now!
My brother in law has had some issues with his boat, and a dear friend from my past had some maintenance issues with his boat and they wanted to fish this fantastic weather today. The tell me that I will not have to do a thing so let's get your sorry ass out on the water on your boat. Alright, let's go! We meet up for a 530 launch and as they promised, I only needed to step aboard and drive the boat. So we make are way out of the canal and start at a spot in the eastern part of the bay and are greeted by some very short fluke. Two drifts and I could tell the consensus was to get out on a flat ocean and get to the deep.
We get to the reef and it is gorgeous. One thing. Almost no drift. I cannot take credit but heard of some success during such a situation so put the boat up on the downside edges and the game was on. No drifting and dreaming! Fluke started biting immediately, but had to be on the downside edges. The boat barely moved and we continued to catch. Where were all these thick 19 inch fish a couple days ago????
My friend gets a hit and the rod doubles over and stays there. I was told to stay at the helm and my brother in law took net duties but once the net snags the dropper, well, need I say more. That fish was all of 5 pounds easy. A bit of a quiet moment but we got our spirits back pretty quickly. Same person next drop and the rod again doubles over to only get the fish to within 10 feet of the surface and out pops the hook. Another 5 pounder looking fish. Yikes, we are cursed!
We regained our composure and my time came and the hit was savage. Down goes the Palmarius 1 spinning rod and stays down. I gain some line and the drag starts ripping!! Now I am thinking maybe a skate or something. There have been tons of the cow nose rays in town. Finally a couple massive headshakes give me the weak knee feeling and I gain line slowly. Up it comes as I am trying not to pump the rod or reel to fast. I look at my brother in law with the net in hand and see a look in his eye that says "DON"T LOOK DOWN" and continue bringing it up. Treated it like any fish and he slid the net under it without any boat side antics. That thick fish pulled the scale to 7 lbs 1oz. Perfect!
Tide slacks and the fluke do too. Doing our best to stay focused and a swirl makes us look and my ever persistent brother in law quickly cast an AVA 17 at it and BANG, game on with a green bonita!! We all start casting jigs and the violent hits on the surface were incredible. We iced 6 of those bad boys in short order. Took almost 10 minutes to clean the blood from every crack in the boat.
Now the tide is moving and the wind picks up with very little results. I mean, granted, we are picking away at some sea bass along the way. We did manage 3 17 inch fish for the ice.
What to do now. Went back to the same pieces from earlier and fished the opposite side drops using the spot lock. Fishing basically on an anchor, we start picking again and iced some more keepers.
Finished the day with 6 keepers with the large belonging to me at 7 lbs 1 oz.
6 green bonita
3 sea bass
1 lone triggerfish
1 lone bluefish
Now that's a day!!
Oh, and some left over ice on the knee now!
,,,thats some report!!!,,,,,,,,,,,all stay well ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
