Winter Skyway Action 1/23/06
Its been a while since we went out on the boat. We were not certain about the weather - many conflicting weather reports - one claimed 3-5 footers So we tried in the bay. We got some sardines and shrimp. Huge shrimps too, bigger that most at Publix. We tried the rock piles off of the south peir. Not much action, hardly any bites. The only nibble came in the 20ft range. Terry caught a big puffer. I caught a 21″ Gag Grouper, It was weird pulling up a fish that big in shallow water. 2 min and it was over.
We left the skyway to try out our new trolling gear. After no strikes we decided to run the planers into the muck to see how deep they ran. Our size 3 planers were running about 18-20 feet. Maybe to shallow for the 30-40 feet we were trolling - need more info about trolling for next time.
We then tried the fish haven ENE of the skyway. It was bizzare to see bass boats in the bay, maybe its common on that side. They seemed overloaded too. I would not be comfortable that far from land in those boats. We dropped anchor and Robert caught a 22″ Gag Grouper. We released it because it was very close (only a 1/16″ over 22″) and not worth taking the chance we measured wrong. After another 1/2 hour of no action, we went to leave. Terry then caught a spare tire. We thought it was a Stingray, due to the undilations of the rod tip. But then we saw the glory of our first Goliath Grouper. It was a baby one 
Only about 3 feet long and a mouth that opened as big as a honeydew melon. It was a nice fish, we did not weigh it because somewere I had read that you can’t take them out of the water for a picture 
Protected species and all. So our Goliath swam away with a free sardine, lucky guy. By the way, Robert bit the tail off a sardine and spit for about 5 minutes. I guess dead oily sardines are a grouper / snapper only food. i’ll stick with twisting the tail off.
Happy fishing,Â
Eric