Shared Delusion

Saturday was our original plan, but the weather was nasty. So we fell back on plan B. A short half day on Sunday. We were going to target Kingfish and Spanish Mackeral off of St Pete.

In a few less than stellar net throws, we got tons of white bait. Our first stop was the St Pete Reef. No action at all - some small bluefish was the only bites we had. We decided to bail for the hard bottom off of the beach.

We drifted over the Hard bottom in 20-15 ft off of Blind pass. We caught 2 keeper kings and then the wind picked up and we headed in. We meet up with Gregg and had Sushi at the Bayfront Toyko Sushi place - it was great.

A note from this trip - take dramine the night before - I was dead tired Monday at work!

Happy fishing, 
Eric

The weatehr was awesome and we looked forward to a varity of fishing options. O’Neils was out of sardines so we got some finger mullet instead. The shrimp were all very large so we got a few dozen of those too. We tried the new purina fish food chum. A school of greenbacks was very interested in it, but a sardine school totally ignored the miso flavored bits. With a good throw, the sardines and many greenbacks were in the bait well. We had a visitor on the bow.

 

First stop was the 20 ft hard bottom off of Pass-a-grille. We expected tons of bait schools getting slammed by birds and mackeral. Every reel was rigged for kings and mackeral. I even had dreams of a little tunny in the mix. Not a single fish or diving bird was to be seen! It was 8:30 and maybe it was to ewarly but the light seemed right. We headed to the Public reef in 30 ft. to see if the mackeral were hanging out over the reef. Lots of bait schools but nothing seemed to be bothering them. None of the boats at the reef were catching anything. So we pressed on to the next stop.

Egmont channel was packed with boats! at least 30+ the 4-2nd to last markers held the most boats. We pressed on the the whistler. No bait sign at all. The ride out was a bit rough only because of the nagle of the long period waves.

Gunsmoke was next - Finally some fish sign on the sonar. We deployed every bottom / surface rig we had - not a single bite. Even the shrimps were untouched. We did see a huge school of bait on the surface feeding off the gunsmoke but no signs of anything hunting the school.

We headed the the Mexican pride - mainly to pick up an amberjack. We anchored a bit off from the group where some fish signs were. We proceeded to limit out on Yellowtail snapper! We caught our first Scamp grouper. 

We also caught a Mangrove snapper. We had to stop fishing once we got our limit, it was late anyway. The ride back in was smooth - the long period waves helped us - we surfed them in. Not a single bait show on the way back (5:00 ish) but we did go over some great structure. We have 3 more spots to check on a later trip.

Happy fishing, 
Eric

I spent the morning participating in the Coastal Cleanup at Fort Desoto. I found many diapers, plastic bags, granola bar wrappers and beer bottles, but the most disappointing part was that I found only one Corona Bottle, it had 2 oz of beer left with no lime!! Ahh people today are so disappointing, society is clearly collapsing

After I finished the cleanup and got my shirt, I called Robert and Terry to have them pick me up. If you were at DeSoto that day, I was the idiot waving to a boat in water up to his chest. The water temp was 68-71. We went to the pinallas reef 4 miles or so off of Bunces pass and found schools of small 15″ Mackeral in 30 ft of water. We caught a few but the action died quick.

Earlier in the day Robert had caught a 18″ Gag Grouper at the reef behind Egmont.

During the morning, while waiting for the Cleanup to begin, I saw many mackeral hitting bait schools by the bay pier.

Happy fishing, 
Eric

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, 
Eric

Terry and Robert decided to try for some fish at the skyway while I was in Vegas, here are the results: On both weekends they fished the rockpiles to the west of the south skyway pier.

on the 5th, many sheephead were caught on shrimp. One sheepshead was 5 lbs. They lost lost of gear on the sardines, all hookups and snags. All the action was on the outgoing tide, early morning, once the tide changed, the fishing was over.

On the 12, they had shrimp and sardines, both of which performed very well. The pinfish and the white bait was untouched. The grouper rods where rigged with less weight and circle hooks. The result - many hookups with small grouper and 2 keepers. One was a 22.5″ and the other was a 28″ Lots of sheepsheead too.

Happy fishing, 
Eric

 

Its been a while since we last fished. Between the red tide reports and Hurricane Katrina - the last few weekends have not worked out. The gods of NOAA called for 2 feet or less, so we planned to see what the water was like. We got an early start and caught some bait at the marina - we got one pinfish at the marina that instantly died. On the way out we checked the flats NE of the skyway bridge for bait - no sign of life at all. Next bait stop was the Egmont 11 marker got some blue runners under the marker but they died in about a minute. So we decided to head offshoree and get whatever live bait was at the fishing area.

We stopped at the dumping area south of the gunsmoke. Saw one school of feeding sardines - they looked thick like a sardine not thin like a greenback or threadfin herring. We cast to the school but nothing seemed to be bothering them. Our first fishing stop was at 120 feet at the hard bottom SE of the mexican pride. The waves were 1-2 footers and the wind was pretty strong. We needed the sea anchor just to let the 8 oz sinkers hit the bottom! Not a single bite - we gave it about 20-30 minutes and left for the Mexican Pride.

Of note, we did not see any schools of bait being hit by anything. We maybe say only 3-4 feeding bait school out far - worst showing of surface activity in a while.

We anchored up perfectly. At almost every drop we got hit. We caught 2 keeper Yellowtail Snapper and a Mangrove snapper. A lot of our hits ended up as huge Blue Runners - big enough for Terry to ask if they were something else. They were really thick and could have made for decent sized filets. We sent them down with a hook instead. We figured we were getting taken by Goliath Groupers but we were able to make some headway against a few of the fish. Terry brought up what looked like a huge, I mean Huge Cobia but it only had one half of a yellowtail snapper in its mouth - at this point it left us with a ripped up fish. We did not use the yellowtail as bait - it had hit the line first and then the cobia must have hit the snapper. While we were there - A guy in a older tan colored walkaround caught a really big Gag Grouper. We have seen them over the pride before and they seem to do really well. that fish was the biggest Gag I’ve ever seen caught. So Some of our bend poles might have been huge Gags, not necessarily Goliaths.

The water was a olive color all the way out with very limited visability. We could not tell what we had caught until it was 6 feet under the boat. Usually you can see the schools of fish 50 feet down at the Pride. There was more fish around the wreck than last time, so its improving but I sure miss the blue water.

Happy fishing, 
Eric

So I guess the idea of industrial pollution is out the window. Not much of that in Florida in the 1800s or in the 40’s when the worst red tide outbreak took place. check out the 1946-1947 - 100 lbs per foot of shoreline

http://isurus.mote.org/%7Emhenry/rtchrono.phtml

Happy fishing, 
Eric

 

We decided to skip getting bait from the flats because we thought the bacteria counts might be to high. (I end up putting the net in my mouth to throw it) So we got some sardines and 5 doz shrimp. NOAA predicted 2 foot waves but the water was very smooth - definatly 2 feet or less. Outside of Egmont pass we came across about 50+ dead floating redfish - thy were fresh and still orange red in color. I cant tell what red tide water looks like - I ‘ve not seen any ‘red ‘ water just water that has a brownish almost brackish tint - not the normal green, tan or blue water I usually see.

All the way out - some 20+ miles - was the brownish tinted water. No signs of life any where - the bottom machine showed very little fish. In fact it was the first time I got to see the structure of the gunsmoke - normally it has 30-40 feet of fish sign above it. At about 30 miles in 110 feet deep water we came across a blue water area with sargassum weed and lots of surface activity. We stopped by a crashing bait school and caught a 25 inch Spanish mackeral on a spoon. We decided to continue - figuring that the water will only get better.

Once we got to 130 feet we were back in the dead zone. We did catch some small grouper but they were not the normal non stop action we experience in the same area last year and earlier this year. Even the Mexican pride wreck seemed to be off. Its is usually packed with so many fish that you can see them on the surface and the bottom machine lights up. This time their were some fish but not that many. We caught a small amberjack, a keeper mangrove snapper and that was it.

We left and headed back to the blue water to try to catch some Little tunny. in about 100 feet we came across some - tried to trool with bonito lures but no luck. Only a freelined shrimp tossed over a school of small baits got us a hit. It was my first Little Tunny.

A storm came up and we raced it in. Missing the rain and strong winds by about 5 minutes. We got a small touch of it about 2 miles out of egmont, the boat handled nice, but I ‘m glad we escaped.

Happy fishing, 
Eric

We had not gone out in 3 weeks now and were looking forward to a nice day. Weather said 2 feet or less. Waves were about 3 feet and someone (me) forgot his dramamine - so I got queasy and we had to head back in. Even at the Gunsmoke area the water was a cloudy green (Hurricane Dennis had been thru the weekend before) Not much fish sign anywhere. so we headed back in to fish an artifical reef in sight of land. Many dead fish and no fish sign at ALL.

Happy fishing, 
Eric

 

We left O’Neils Marina at 8:30am - The weather looked beautiful. Gregg came along - his new scion. We first went to the skyway for bait. Schools of small greenbacks were crusing the shadow line but it was too deep to catch them and we did not want to risk the net by concrete. We switched to the Flats - chum worked and we had a nice mix of bigger greenbacks, threadfin herring and pinfish.

On the agenda was a straight run for the deep (130 feet) - no distractions allowed.

Once we got to the Mexican pride we saw lots of boats - apparently its not just my Secret Spot. So we tried the hard bottom in the south SW area of the wreck. Oddly no sargassum or flying fish to speak of. The water was amazingly flat. The bottom fishing seemed to be very light until we drifted over some swiss cheese bottom and then the red groupers were hooked up. We caught 4 Red Groupers big enough for the box. We also came across a school of Mahi - the whitebait came in very handy. We caught 8 of the beauties and got some great pictures thanks to Gregg.

Both Gregg and I tried swimming with the Mahi and it was very unsettling to swim in the expansive blue water with no point of reference. But seeing the Mahi swim by was pretty cool.

On the way back we stopped by the Parking lot - err I mean the Mexican Pride and saw 100’s of small amberjack under the boat plus many barracuda. Circling at the surface, were large schools of Jack crevalle. I caught one with a live bait tossed from the front of the boat.

On the way back we stopped because of some surface activity. We caught a Little Tunny - our first (that arrived in one peice :). The boat was surrounded by large sharks - we caught themuntil our backs and shoulders where like jello. All released to fight another day. That was in 100 feet of water - other than the sharks not much activity - but we did learn what sharks look like on sonar.

We were out early the next day. We hoped for a repeat performance. Bait was the same. Destination unchanged.

We noticed the sharks where larger in shallow water and got smaller the further out we went - the grouper got bigger the deeper the water. Day was essentially the same - 4 keeper grouper.

On the way back in, We spotted on the edge of our sight a small blip on the surface. We decided to investigate. In about 110 feet of water a telephone pole was drifting. Not something I’d like to run over but It was a welcome sight to see the acres of Mahi free jumping like mullet around the pole. The school must have been in the hundreds. The were very aggresive. We caught them none stop for 45 minutes - until we hit our limit of 30.Everyone at work had Freezer bags filled with Mahi on Tuesday! It took Robert 2 hours to clean them all! Our cooler was over flowing with them. This was probably the best day we have ever had!!

We came across some Little Tunny in 80 feet but where to tired to more than one pass.

The Mahi surrounding the boat was a picture perfect Florida fishing day. The water was a perfect clean tourquise and so slick - not a single wave was seen.

Happy fishing, 
Eric