Shared Delusion

Good bait on the flats - our new nets works great - its very heavy but I have learned how to handle it. Skyway was devoid of bait. Picked up some Blue runners and ladyfish in the Egmont channel. Massive schools of greenbacks about 3-5 miles out but no signs of predators.

50 feet by the freighters - no action. but bait pods changed to huge cigar minnows.

At 70 feet we came across some schools of cigar minnows being harrased by some kings - We caught one on a live ladyfish. My first kingfish.

The water was flat and blue - a perfect day.

We decided to try the gunsmoke - a wreck far to the south.

On the way we came thru a unusual area which some dolphin (mammal) and odd bait signs. We stopped (did not mark it however … grrrrr) While idling around looking at the bottom with some baits out - one might call this unintentional trolling. Robert caught a huge fish. At first we had no idea what it was. From the depths came the biggest Jack Crevalle We had ever seen. It was 32 lbs.

I’d swear Robert was in a life or death struggle with it for 30 minutes. He was beat. We heaved the fish back in the water after some pictures. Then we left with put marking the spot - in retropect it was probably a spring or some other structure.

At the gunsmoke we caught a few undersize grouper but the bait where covering the wreck. We waited for 30 min until a single diver left the wreck and the 3 boats could start fishing.

Happy fishing, 
Eric

Water was real wavy and very windy. We saw some spanish mackerel abot a mile or so off the beach. We caught some on spoons - they were very large - bigger than the ones we used to eat

Now they are bait.

At the south county reef some people were trolling for kings. I saw a big one breach - it was impressive. Saw many schools of little tunny but no luck. On the circle part of the reef we had many hookups and ’snags’ that we though might have been goliath groupers. Terry caught a keeper Gag grouper - it was creating our snags - we know because it puked up some sardines The Gags are fast and powerful in thier first hit.

Happy fishing, 
Eric

Since it was a break in the hurricanes, I had to go out on the boat. This was the summer of the 4 hurricanes hitting florida.

The swells were about 6 feet - far apart, i could not see over the waves when teh boat in the bottom of the swell.

I went out to the 50 feet area around the freighters to catch some grouper. Caught some shorts but I got really seasick. I was either the chum I bought or having to rig for the cobia circling the boat. After, err…. displacing some ballast… I still did not feel better - now I was seasick and tasting puke so I headed in

Happy fishing, 
Eric