Opting to avoid Tournement crowds for Saturday's FSFA Tourney, we took our group of 5 guys out on Friday. One in the group, who is active military, arrived from India the day before after 30 hours travel. He had only 2 days in Florida before heading to DC for a new assignment. The weather was forecast to be nice through the morning, but a storm skirted just to the north of the Port, and heavy rain experianced on the drive to the docks had me question it. What was going to be a smooth dry ride out turned to be quite choppy and wet, with winds up from what was forecast. We found the first patch of scattered weeds around 120', and decided to work that area until the winds hopefully dropped. We were hoping for Mahi along the sparse weedline, as we had been secessful on previous trips along patchy weeds. This trip yielded no "Phins", though the weeds did produce catch's of Kings and Tuny's which provided some excitement. We worked out to 140' with little change in results. With the sea's still quite choppy, and one guest quite sick, we decided to try some bottom fishing. A few quite large Sea Bass were added to the icebox in 120' waters, before heading to Pelican Flats. With the north grounds closed due to the launch we were forced to stay south all day. At Pelican we again saw the Sea Bass on the larger size. Lane Snapper was also added to the icebox. Undersized Vermillion Snapper have been common recently, and several were released. Perhaps the most interesting catch, was a Red Snapper. They are so abundant that its hardly a surprise to catch one, but this one was caught at Pelican......on a flatline out for Kings! Apparently this fish was brave enough to come up to 10' to retrieve a Sardine. Of course what would have been a nice 24" addition to the icebox, but was allowed to rejoin its ever growing population on the reef. The Kings we caught this trip all hit skirted Ballyhoo. Several more "cutoffs" occured, meaning more Kings were there. Maybe I need to add a treble and wire to the tail of my Ballyhoo, just in case. Our trip ended with a nice view of the new Falcon 9 rocket being sucessfully launched. Fortunately, it went Friday, for if it had not, Saturday and Tourney time would have been severly restricted, with a reschedule and area closure for Saturday.
Captain Henry
"Wile E. Coyote"
ACME Ventures Fishing
www.ACME-Ventures-Fishing.com
321-794-7955 / 407-349-1546 |
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