Finfeatherfur
07-10-2011, 09:01 AM
I remember someone saying how easy offshore fishing is.......lol - Well, I got a dose of humble pie yesterday out of Freshwater City. After several "easy" trips, I found myself on Brandon's Contender yesterday and my honeyholes seemed to have dried up. I had the boat w/ my family and a buddy was suppose to come with his. Well, his son ends up sick Friday night so he sends his wife and daughter to fish with us.
First sign of trouble was my bait spot when my kids only produced 3 hard tails on sabika rigs. I swear, we could make a fortune on hardtails with these boys if we lived in Venice for the tuna fisherman, but today was nothing and strong current. Next stop was one of our snapper spots, but they had one boat already there catching small snapper and after breaking off and then landing 1 shark, I cranked up. Our bluewater was pushed out and now we were seeing a stained/dark water. I was not impressed! At 10:30am, I had one fish in the box!
I decided to roll the dice and head south. Stopped a one platform and called my buddy who was in his 36' Contender a few miles from me. They came out from the Point and only found small fish. I pointed the boat south and rolled out to find better water and fish. Only 6 miles from where we sat and talked about our next move, we cross a great water change with lots of grass and blue water on it. We pulled baits for a few 20 minutes only picking up a small dolphin.
Pulled up to my last platform of the day and literally had snapper only 10' from the boat. It took less than 20 minutes for these kids and ladies to fill our limit. From there, cleaned up a little, grabbed the spear gun in the hunt for mangroves. Hit the water and fought the current for 10 minutes and gave up w/o seeing one greydog.
Headed back to the grass to play with the chickens. After not seeing 1 cobia all day, we hook up with a nice 30lber.........on a speck rod and we all know how that ended up. After putting 6 or so chickens in the boat we move to a buoy and pick up 6 more chickens and the kids were having a ball with them. Hit the second buoy and have a 20lb cobia on it, but again, before I could feed him a jig, one of the boys has it eat a small jack it had hooked on a speck rod. Saw one more that would not eat. So I went 0-3 on Cobia and that really burns my butt!!!! After that, the crew was whipped and we had a 67 mile run to FWC. Made it in and barely got the boat on the trailer w/ the low tide.
First sign of trouble was my bait spot when my kids only produced 3 hard tails on sabika rigs. I swear, we could make a fortune on hardtails with these boys if we lived in Venice for the tuna fisherman, but today was nothing and strong current. Next stop was one of our snapper spots, but they had one boat already there catching small snapper and after breaking off and then landing 1 shark, I cranked up. Our bluewater was pushed out and now we were seeing a stained/dark water. I was not impressed! At 10:30am, I had one fish in the box!
I decided to roll the dice and head south. Stopped a one platform and called my buddy who was in his 36' Contender a few miles from me. They came out from the Point and only found small fish. I pointed the boat south and rolled out to find better water and fish. Only 6 miles from where we sat and talked about our next move, we cross a great water change with lots of grass and blue water on it. We pulled baits for a few 20 minutes only picking up a small dolphin.
Pulled up to my last platform of the day and literally had snapper only 10' from the boat. It took less than 20 minutes for these kids and ladies to fill our limit. From there, cleaned up a little, grabbed the spear gun in the hunt for mangroves. Hit the water and fought the current for 10 minutes and gave up w/o seeing one greydog.
Headed back to the grass to play with the chickens. After not seeing 1 cobia all day, we hook up with a nice 30lber.........on a speck rod and we all know how that ended up. After putting 6 or so chickens in the boat we move to a buoy and pick up 6 more chickens and the kids were having a ball with them. Hit the second buoy and have a 20lb cobia on it, but again, before I could feed him a jig, one of the boys has it eat a small jack it had hooked on a speck rod. Saw one more that would not eat. So I went 0-3 on Cobia and that really burns my butt!!!! After that, the crew was whipped and we had a 67 mile run to FWC. Made it in and barely got the boat on the trailer w/ the low tide.