Got down this afternoon and got right to work. The weather never broke out of the sixties and the wind was screaming west. My inside flats were windswept so I tried a couple near shore ones. The tide was wrong and the water cold. No bones to be found and only one small bonnethead shark to be seen. The tide was right earlier for tarpon in our creek but the lights i like to work were burnt out. Still we jumped one small one and picked a mix of goggle eyes and look downs on live shrimp. I have a couple shark baits set right now but so far no action...
Just got a call from my uncle who lives on marco island and he said it was down in the 40's and the wind was a blowing. may the warm return to you deep..
Swung to straight north, still cold and now had flats both ocean and bay side too blown to work. Wound up catching grunts and small snappers tucked back in the mangroves this morn. Came in early to get out of the cold. Yesterday there was a good snap of sails offshore. I don't have a very hearty group but maybe tomorrow.
Happy Gobble Gobble to all...
We took a second shot to the mangroves with some more kids for a continued pick of small snappers, grunts and lookdowns. Then it was back to castle Deep Keys for the bird feast. Just as we sat down the wind dropped out all the way. We scarfed grimmace proportions of bird and cranberries and half a dozen types of carbs then jumped in the skiff for a quick push over the flats.
It was glassy smooth for a nice half mile push. So glassy that if it moved and rippled the surface you could see it. Unfortunately the bones are cold shy and just weren't up top. Still it was a wonderful push. When I get back to Palm Beach I'll toss up shots of just how smooth and beautiful it was...
The wind was back up northwest. The current was headed out and that set our chum away from the patch reefs. Bait was terribly hard.The same northwest had the water dirty on the edge and even thr triggerfish pushed out.
They were brutal and our short supply of bait forced us to keep the baits close to pull them away from the triggers. When that happens your spread is too tight to cover water properly. I could feel fish hanging long and when we slid the baits back we drew a blackfin before the toothy ones closed back in. We tried a bit farther out and they left us alone but the fish were holed up tight on the change.
One pass in we raised a pair of sails and the triggers swarmed. Both fish zeroed in on one bait while the other baits just got mauked. Finally we had one eat of the pair and got it into the air.
A guy trolling near us didn't see we were on the fish and he turned cutting us off .
A couple kings cut us off after that and finally we drilled another sail. So it was one for two and a lone blackfin to call our own.
Back at the dock I could see athat my neighbor had crushed a nice mix of bottom fish. A couple muttons, yellowtails, hogfish and even a grouper rack were clearly visible under the cleaning table...
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