The winds were slow and the predicted ocean wave was less than 1ft. Fishing stats were 45% with a major at 2pm.
We wanted to leave early but that never seems to happen. We prepped the boat the night before except for rods, food and bait. We over slept to start. Loaded up the rest and had to get some boat fuel and bait from the local shop on El Jobean. We bought 4 dozen ship. Deborah bought chum and frozen bait at Publix the day before.
We docked at the Gulf Cove community ramp even though it is a longer run to Boca then offshore. Even this ramp was busy and I had to park the trailer in the grass.
The water was near glass and this was a very smooth ride today. We made it to the Boca pass quickly. I saw some stacks of fish but couldn’t hold the spot long enough to see if they would bite. There were Tarpon rolling the area as well. I decided to run to the Vixen wreck reef. I had good luck there before. This was a 30 minute trip cruising at 30mph. The problem with the Gulf here is that it is shallow and you have to go 15 miles out just to get to 60ft of water. Even there the fish are not that large unless it is a predator.
We got there about 11:20. There were boats on my spot I wanted so we cruised around to others and found a bed of sea grass with some activity. I managed to get anchored within 50ft. I don’t have one of those fancy GPS spot lock trollers. At noon, the bite is dead. It is time lunch anyway.
After lunch we threw out a chum bag and Deborah tossed cut bait in the water. Typically we bait fish show up in about 30 minutes. But the only thing to appear was a sea turtle and a dolphin.
Now it is 1pm. Still no action! That dolphin was still here circling the boat. I wanted to bail and try another spot. There were no fish on the sonar. Deborah wanted to wait till after 2pm. That is the major tide time.
First fish of the day goes to Deborah! Looks like a Porgy. I had about given up and wasn’t focused on fishing. The dolphin was still here by the way. Now we started getting hits and the mangrove snapper were biting. We caught many mangroves and kept the larger ones plus another porgy. At one point I threw the dolphin a fish hoping it would leave. It ate the fish but hung around for more. The bite died off and we packed up to make the run back. I had Deborah drive to get some more experience. We made it back to Boca. I thought, let’s drift fish in the channel for a few minutes.
I put some cut spanish mackerel on my #2 hook light rod with 3/8 sinker Carolina rig. Tossed that out and with minutes I had a good fish on!
Pulled up a nice gag grouper!
These are out of season and had to release. Deborah caught one too. But now it is getting late and we wanted to get back before dark. We got back right after dusk. I noticed a lot of activity at the mouth to our dock. So I stopped to cast in. I thought it might be snook since I saw a large tail. But the majority of the activity was spanish mackerel.
Deborah is such a helper! I was wiped out after unloading the boat, flushing the engine and just wanted to crash. She stayed up and cleaned all these fish!