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Fishin' friends-----every day that I can get on the water with good friends......it's ALWAYS a good day! but Tuesday was a really special day......how about this one ........ Scott Darner broke the jetties at 6:15am......slick calm.......his dad, Chuck + I were on the bean bags in the back ...... almost asleep already ......... about an hour later .. Scott pulled the sticks back for a pee break.......the sun was just starting to show--------looked like a million dollar gold piece....just to our east.......in another 30 minutes the bottom machine read 139 feet + 72.5 degrees.....we put the hi speeds over the side....+ got ready .... course= 110 degrees east...! ...there was a little 1-2 ft easy chop as we approached the rolldown...........15 minutes went by.....the port bent butt rod screamed! in a few more minutes we had a nice 40+ hooo flapping on the deck-----the hook fell out while lifting him over gunwale. we crossed the ledge out to about 800ft cold!!.....temp...70 degrees.....we turned around + followed our plotter arrow back inside.....get in that warm water again! at 12:00 Scott says "hey guys, we've got enough,let's pick 'em up+ head west-we'll stop on the way home+catch a snapper or two". yes indeed!! we had plenty of blue water fillets..........3 nice hoos + a tuna! after a 40 min nap on the bean bags again ....... I listened to the twin 200 yammies rpm decending..........3 min latter... I through the marker jug.........as we were marking up some pretty bottom on the recorder.....we got the anchor set...+dropped our frozen cigars down......wow! what a bite of big snapper we were in! in a couple of hrs we had our limit! (6) of genuine's in the 6-10 lb range---a few seabass +triggers---Scott wanted to get even with a 100lb+ black tip who ate a keeper snapper.so....he hooked him up on a short rod +and a torrium spooled with braid ..... after 20 min or so ...... Chuck had the gaff out....damn i'm glad that shark broke off at boat side....gold gaffs are costly!!! we ran the next 37 miles west at 4800 rpm on a slick beautiful atlantic ocean ............. Chuck + I back on the bean bags again! oh yea....one interuption......from Scott - "hey dad..+..Bill -wake up- look a the 2 right wales with a pup!" honestly now,can a day really be better than this one....at 69 yrs old - I just thank GOD everyday, he continues to give me....good health....so I may continue to enjoy them ...... tight lines.
3/11/09
Henry Taylor, George Hyman, Morris Anderson and Lou DeNicola tried a new plan. Since the snapper fishing in close was reported to be difficult we thought that live bait might be the answer. Steve Thopson had suggested this. We ran south to the Red Tops and caught 100 whiting in 45 feet of water over 2-3 hours and then headed to PV only 10 miles away. Anchoring was difficult but the drift was slow enough to allow us about 10 minutes of fishing over structure. Over 3 hours we probably caught 30 snapper and 4 grouper. Unfortunately all but 3 snapper were undersized and Morris caught those 3. All in all we had a great day on Henry's boat in 1 foot seas and came home with 50 whiting and one big sapper filets per person without running more than about 20 miles each way.
2/27/09
Morris Anderson, Lou DeNicola and our friend, Larry Wertz set out for a day of off shore fishing. The river looked beautiful but as we entered the ocean we were met by 3-5 foot seas only 5-6 seconds apart. We could have made it to the RL reef but it would have been difficult to anchor or fish in these conditions. Instead we searched for Whiting, first, north of the Jettys tnen at the jettys and finally in 30-45 feet of water off the Jacksonville Beach pier. never hit the mother load but ended a short day with 31 fish, no sea sickness and a pleasant day.
...That's what Capt George calls bottom fishin'.....manly fishin' Anyway, this trip started out as deep water whiting trip. Since the whiting aren't on the beach, sometimes around this time of the year, you can target the big bulls out in the 35 to 45 feet of water range. We broke the jetty's at the crack of 9:30 no sense in freezin' our butt's off just to catch some whiting. But after moving around a bit, we knew the whiting weren't gonna be the ticket today....the water was just too dirty. So I said lets just zip out to RL and fish this ledge I have for some seabass, and maybe a snapp or two will be hungry, but the plan was seabass. Well in no time flat we were pulling up to my spot and wouldn't you know it, only 2 boats there and one of 'em is dead on "my spot"...I thought I told everybody to stay away from "my spot", but I guess these guys didn't get the message ....(just kiddin' of course)......but they were right where I wanted to be, and since I had made a bee-line right to 'em, I creeped on up to 'em just to say hello, and let 'em know that they were on a good ledge, and that I wasn't tryin' to get their spot or anything, and that I may be anchoring kinda near you, but not close enough to bother you at all. They were all as nice as could be and were on a good seabass bite, so we gott away from 'em by 3/4 of a mile or so. As we were moving I saw an acre of sardines on the surface, so I scrambled into my kingfish stuff and quickly rigged a sabiki, and we ! proceeded to catch several baits for the bottom. Lesson # 1 for the day If you are getting bait for snapper, and they are plentiful, spend an extra 10 minutes and black out your well. Back to the story, the first spot was seabass city with only a few keepers, so we moved to another out of the way spot, and marked some good broken bottom, but not really fish, but decided to anchor anyway and stink up the bottom. This place had some nice seabass on it, then the sharks found us...but just a couple. At this place I put down a livey and right away the snapper jumped it. 18 inches so back he went. Caught several like him, then a 19 and a half one , then Morris caught a keeper snapp...then no more livies ...(see lesson # 1) Lesson # 2..... always bring more boston mackerel than you need. Morris threw a couple of bostons into his bait cooler just in case. Well after the livies ran out, and that's all the snapps wanted, we switched back to cut cigars for me and Morris put on a chunk of boston. I caught a fat shark, and Morris hooked up right after with a shark of his own....but wait, this shark didn't swim out like the others, and after a good tussle, a real nice grouper came into the boat. Then I sent down a chunk and got hammered, only to pull the hooks and miss him, the next and last few pieces got hit hard too....the fish had finally started eating and we were out of what they wanted so we left them for another day. Turned out to be a nice day, especially as we changed our plans on the water, we went from whiting fishin' to seabass fishin' to snapper and grouper fishin', all at the crack of 9:30