I showed up at the appointed time. Curt and Jim alreeady were there. The trees were whippin and the flags were snappin in the howling wind. Curt looked like he was gonna cry. I just opened up my car and started passing the inshore rods out.
"Probably too windy to even anchor right but lets go..."
I did a five mile troll up the intercoastal to the inlet where I wanted to try for sheepshead on a couple markers there. We got a grunt and a couple of porkfish but nothing worth keeping. My eyes scanned the inlet for life but what life I saw was outside. Then I noticed that despite 25 knots in the face from the east it really didn't look bad.
I looked around and took stck of what I did and did not have. I had no trolling bait of any kind. It was too rough to get close to the rocks to get live bait but I did have a collection of day saver class lures!
"Curt, take thes (light speedmaster trolling outfits) and start handing down the spin rods..."
In just minutes I had four of my 15lb sticks in position each loaded with a different kind of day saver. When I ay day saver, they are little dinky lures I make just for my own use. Weighted skirt or cut back mamba or even a tiny jet I used to make with a 3" skirt... We slid out the inlet and the wind was saying 6-8' but the reality was 3-5 and way sloppy.
I dropped the baits in the inlet mouth and made my way offshore.
Almost instantly we bowed up with bonitas and big blur runners. As I got deeper we had flyers all over and the small baits I was dragging really matched the hatch.
We drilled more neeters and then on an up sea run, I saw purple. Yeah baby... A sail... Wait a second... don't get excited... I'm pulling dinky plastic kind of slow... it can't be good... Or can it!
Like a champ the little sail came up and ate the right flat. He bowed up and jumped off. Just a little guy. The truth is way little, like small and rare enough to get me really excited... I cursed the luck about jumping him off but the brazen dink billfish was hell bent on that lure and piled again this time staying stuck. We got it to the boat and I dont think the thing weighed mor than five pounds! Gorgeous!!!. I had left the digital back on land cause we were going junk fishing and cause it was gonna rain. I do keep a film camera aboard though so YES we have shots! That'll take a bit to get them on here but I'll figure it out...
I passed through the area again and we caught more neeters. Then here came the dolphin. Two nice ones hit the box. More passes more neeters and anither raised sail that didn't eat. Then a sloppy fat dolphin of about 20 lbs... Then more neeters...
What a day! And to think I never even dunked a hoo... I just liove it!
Got to the dock and the wind was still humping. Not quite as hard as yesterday but still gettin it.
We had decided to be brave manly men and go offshore. The 5-8 we thought we would see yeaterday that wasnt there then... Was now... It was all I could do to keep from getting washed right off my tower as I laid the riggers down. But we got two nakeds on the riggers and two different daysavers on the flats.
Horrendous seas hammered us for close to an hour before the bite began to develop. It started with neeters. First one then some then a bunch. We had some genuine skipjscks mixed in that worked those little drags pretty hard. Then we finally started picking dolphin. Not biggies but plenty of 5-6lb mostly small bulls... That pick was good for a while then some whack job diver decided to set up in the 5-8' slop and go for a swim right in the groove I had been working...
Another pretty boat was working the area and once in a while I could see him pick a fish. The neeters were stady action between the big bites that came next.
I was making a down sea turn and the rigger bait was blind to me. Bang! Down it came. line started comming off. This wasn't one of the little speed masters. It was a full dress TLD with 15lbs of drag ( I set it high cause I didn't want to have to back down in the heavy sea). The run was smooth and quick. Ok so a hundred yards went bye bye, no biggie... As 200 then 300 melted off I was now hard on the sticks in "R" It held up for a second and we actually started to get some back then it hit the after burners... 350 went by then 400 and my but was puckering. Then came the knot!
The sufix stretched for a while then there was a distinct stand up at the end. I was sure we had busted off what ever the hell it was. Frustrated, the angler Tom (I mistakenly called him Jim yesterday) reeled all the sline back in. About fifty yards back I saw something comming at the boat... The Bait? Yep the bait didn't have a mark on it??? There was no slime on the line or leader to indicate some tail wrap... I just don't know what we had???
We continued to pic some small critters then had a sail pile on the left rigger...
I passed through there again and this time I could see a fish comming on and pile on the same left rigger... A fish yes but what the hell was it? Not quite houndfish... Not quite billfish... I've caught a zillion hounds before so I know them. This fish had shorter bill, weird almost allison fins at the back, no dorsal, long pecks, flat sides like a billfish and upper and lower bill with much finer teeth than a needlefish or houndie... Kinda a billfish type rasp...
I have caught a couple in the keys and nobody had a true name for them there. I don't have its true name either... It's close enough to a billfish that I WANT A FLAG DAMNIT! You decide...
Slid to the inlet... I had played meow meow yesterday and didn't want to do that again. So despite the 6-9 tight slop and near 25-30kt gale, we tucked her out into the deep. I was having a tough time keeping the baits in the water much less trying to work a pattern. A couple neeters piled on us along the edge. The third pass deep we missed two mystery bites. I know Box likes capts with their eyes in the baits but in the real rough stuff I had to keep my eyes open forward for breaking seas and picking paths between the worst peaks...
Two more passes and I heard "fish". I looked back and for the second time this week a sail was back on our purple day saver... Fair enough... We came , we saw, we got beat up, we got to play with a sail. With that we made a bee line for the beach...
The water was powder bright blue. I hated to leave but it was the prudent thing to do. Sorry its not much of a breath taking nail biting report but its all I got... I'm gonna go soak in the Jaccuzi now...[/
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Gorgeous!!!. I had left the digital back on land cause we were going junk fishing and cause it was gonna rain. I do keep a film camera aboard though so YES we have shots! That'll take a bit to get them on here but I'll figure it out...
