Briught the Contender north yesterday... The owner wanted to play over the next few days. Not interested in catching. Just wanted a vacation and a couple hours a day of sliding out to see whats out there.
Well he showed up about 10:AM . Introduced him around the place and off we went. So impressed by the marina and neighborhood, he made a big decision to keep the boat here instead of MIami... Welcome home Mirage... Further he decided to leave it here year around so we can get at the swords late into the spring and early in the fall as well as "in season". That saves metwo hours drive in each direction every time I want to fix something or add something to the precious little rig.
We slid through the inlet and after that now famous half mile bone jarrin run we deployed a full six bait spread of thos circle rigged hoos I have been dialing in. The radio was full of guys moanin about how slow it was. 5-10 from the south will do that to the place. I decided to get out of my usual groove and hit a few spots I havn't worked recently. First pass on one produced some dolphin. I've got a freezer ful and he didn't want any so it was released.
A pass on a second spot produced another. This time though as I throttled back I saw a sail raise then ink away. As he fought the dolphin a bunch more came into the dredge. I was ripping a rigger bait back to the boat to get it away and a sail hammered it. So fast that I couldn't react. Tore the bait up and split in a blink.
I got away from the dolphin nd hit an old favorite spot that I just havn't been able to get to for a while. I got right on the range and a fish torpedoed the flat line. I was thinking wahoo but it instant ly bowed up on the circle. A short run andout it came. A sail...
A nifty fight for a smallish fish... At least we got one... We packed it in early and did some real estate browsing on the way in... Life is good...
You've seen the owner with a lot of fish in the keys. This was his first n dead bait on conventional and a different back drop.
They're just so pretty when they eat dead baits....
Also they know when I'm leadering bare handed and using one hand to take their pic... THen they go airborne and love to dig that mono in...
Knocked the dust off the skiff for the first time this season. Dead batteries, busted rigger line even a busted rigger base couldn't stop me for giving it a go. I had a dozen circle hoos along but decided to try to catch some live bait.l Three good size and three too big runners later I set up.
Damn if the too big didn't get the first fish... I know its 2008 but this fish looked no different than a 2000 fish. I'm starting to notice a pattern on these circle hooked sails. They seem to react slower to being hooked than others. I was able to get that first fish's leader to the tip before he hit the after burners... A quick five minutes later was the release.
I reset on my spot and got em back out. This time a right size bait got the nod and was consumed. This fish had more spunk than the first and ndticably more shoulders. Closer to fifteen minutes for that release.
I reset once again. A king got one as I set it out. Down to my last three live ones. Here came a hammerhead. I tried to keep the flat away. I didn't do so good. Even worse was somewhere in the confusion he had eaten a rigger too.
I switched to dead... The skiff doesn't raise fish as well as I like especially with only one rigger so it was a spread of four that I pinned my prayers on. Deep shallow in out up down. I was beating a dead horse. Approaching front was threatening to unload some rain. I trolled toward the beach. Those that have fished with me might know the red buow. Not the sea buoy a mile or so out but the red one about three hundred yards off the beach... Well here came a pack of purple. Only one branched off to eat but being alone I didn't care. Fish number three was set free in 56 feet of water and I'm home just past noon.
If it was that good today I cant wait to see what tomorrow brings with the cold front...
Cleared the inlet and dropped the jigs. Instantlye picked off three runners and I thought it would be good. That was it though. Just three. Several more passes coughed up nothing and was pretty sloppy in there. A school of macks moved in and shaved our jigs off clean in a blink. Clock was ticking.
Then I saw a brown area just rais up. An acre of big jacks. I lopped off one of my live bait hooks and tied on a jig. The first cast was short but here came a lone cobia. It turned off. My angler cast again and one of the twelve cylinder crevalles piled on it. Long stubborn fight and it was released.
Offshore was sporty. Put out all three and fifteen minutes or so later they all strted getting nervous. A single ate the left rigger and it was game on. A bunch of floppin at first then some dogging. Probably about fifteen minutes till we released the frisky rat sail. A dolphin investigated for a minute or two but the bait was too big to tackle.
My passenger wanted to go back and look for the jacks. We did find some small ones but the big pack moved away. Then right at the inlet mouth we saw more fish. This time permit. Alas they wanted nothing to do with the bare jig. Perhaps if I had some shrimp it would have been a different ending, but still interesting.
Half days are just too short to get much done but it was a cool quick run. On the way up the intercoastal I saw a first at least for me in this area. In center channel there was a long green thing ahead. As I got closer I could see it was a full growed iguana. As I pulled up next to it, the thing rolled on its back like it wanted to fight. Broke out my camera and took a couple shots before it righted itself and swam off.
All in all a pretty interesting half day trip.
There are words for days like today... Dead, deader, deadest, or if you prefer it flat out sucked... Game plan was for a scouting mission. Radios scanning and we would work from Lake Worth to Jupiter. We did eight miles of live bait draggin without so much as a toothy critter.
As we pulled in the dead to go to live saw a small boat bow one up. Kid had it on and dad took the rod from the kid and lost the fish... Got the spread out and started to work the hell out of it.
Eight more miles later, just short of Jupiter we got covered up with big bonitos. Not a lot stayed stuck on the circles but a couple did. As we deployed again. This round it was dolphin. Then the next a lone king on the third fresh spread.
Then finally a sail. Went zig zagging between the riggers and slapped em both but wouldn't eat. We doubled back and another came up inside and swatted the inside rigger but wouldn't eat either. We bowed up and decked another dolphin. This one a little better size then it died. Heavy rain turned us around at the loran tower and we headed back south. The whole day we had not heard of one caught sail until about 3 o'clock then it was just one. We had a third sail raise and wouldn't even slap the bait. Just followed it then another bit but never gave us a touch.
Did hear that the bite was twenty five miles farther north than I was fishing at my northernmost point but off the Palm Beaches the deadest I have seen or heard of in months.
Being a practice day, burning a hundred gallons of the boss's fuel didn't seem prudent so we did the close to home drag again but much farther north. Only a couple boats out as far as the eyes could see.
Flopped up the kite and let her rip. Water greenish, current was back scramin though. Flyers all over and we soon found out what was pushing em. Dolphin, dolphin and more of the green menaces tortured us all day. Kinda like bull fightig with the kite. Fish would rush in and we pulled the baits out of the water. Over and over... 19 miles we covered and other than them and a lone tuna never saw a sail. Still not far enough...
Decided to get off the high dollar gogs and went back dead baiting. Drove around the green death. Had a lot of mystery bites a couple more of the plague and finally raised one sail. Same story as yesterday. Wouldnt eat...
The Jupiter Sail tourney for us was pretty much a bust. All the dolphin we could stand were on hand.
Day one we slid north. Fleet spread way out. Water dirty, smattering of reports, we moved four times during the days but all it was for us was dolphin in each place. At oone point we were 61 miles from home and still nothing. We slid back to 48 from home and set up. Baits getting scared from the south end of our spread to the north indicated that we may well have had sails passing by but not eating.
Day two with those fish passing by the day before we figured they would be farther south than befoe and there were some indeed there. Problem was that being so far back in points we needed to troll and it seemed that they only wanted live...
Two more trips...
Not a lot to either one... Pretty good dolphin bite which for the passengers made for a great time but for me is starting to get monotonous. Hit one area and was getting mystery bites. They were leaving me the heads and maybe a little more all mushed up but weren't finding the circles. May have been bonitos.
On the morning trip we had one mystery bite that the leader came back all scuffed up like a billfish but the hook was cut off clean?
The afternoon I think we had a wahoo bite as we got unloaded quick and cut off clean. Did have one sail raise as we were pulling the baits at the end of the day in the rain. Just did a drive by and never touched in about 60 feet of water right outside of the inlet...
Two for three on the skiff for a late start half today on dead bait. A bit bumpy but doable as long as I stayed inshore on the north legs and then rode down sea deeper on the southbound. Finally a glimmer of hope.
Had a rigger shear where it meets the base so that was an irritation but three flat and one rigger seemed to work ok.
Got back and jumped right over to more yard work on the Deep C... Amazing how one project tunrs into ten. I had the radio on and the bite stayed strong for those who remained. From Breakers to Jupiter the sails were snappin. It was killin me. I wanted so badly to put the teak cleaner, carpet shampoo, rust remover, and other stuff away but I was on a roll.
I hope they continue through tomorrow morning at least before it gets too bumpy for the skiff. Then back to getting the Deep C sharp...
Cancelled todays trip last night. Figures, it turned out to be a pretty nice day. Took a few hours out from doing yard work and did a quick solo drag . Out of the gate I could see it was good right in front. Live bait was getting crushed for the guys who had em. I had dead. Had one drive by but no take. Then Poked one of a double that raised. Pretty fish but no fun when nobody there to share. Nothing left to prove so pulled the plug and even got more boat yard work done before it got dark.
The last week was devoted to working on the different boats. Today I broke free of the dock and wish I had stayed in bed... Nothing went right. Car radiator leaking on way to boat. They had yellow monkey food next to the ice cooler at the convenience store.
Got our bait. I love when I pay premium price and get shit in return. A retread a couple runners and a few good baits but most on the small side...
Slid out to my spot. Almost immediately we had a fish running our bait around. No sign. A while later again with the push but no eat. Then we had a fish come up and terrorize our whole spread for ten minutes without opening its mouth. Two of the baits had heart attacks a third was mauled by some mystery fish. Then here came the green death. Three more gogs down. Then two more. Five high dollar baitstraded for pee wee dolphin.
We dashed down the road. The raymarin machine crapped the bed and I was left to fish blind til I found the loose wire... Sat there for two hours. All around boats bowed up and we sat with our two sick baits out there.
Finally made the call to switch to dead bait. Dragged back north and found more green death. And again. Then in the middle of them came a sail. Swatted the bird bait then piled on the left flat. Before we could blinnk I was looking at bare hook. Fifteen minutes later we had one sniffing around . I moved with him. It ate. I dropped and it just wasnt there when I went to get tight. On a blind turn here came yet another. Again a long drop and came home with a shiny empty hook...
I finally figured what was holding the fish. Bait was reading heavy. Well this bait turned out to be vermillion snappers and some guys roared in and short drifted the stack. Almost cutting off the spread several times. Then a zilla class dolphin ate the rigger. Jamie worked the fish when one of the bottom beaters sat down much too close. The bottom guy bowed up as our dolphin swam under his boat. His power pro went through our mono like a hot knife and butter...
With all that action right there I switched back to live baits. Again not a touch. Went back to dead and trolled til near sunset. Defeated, off my game I pointed at the big W on the compass...
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So fast that I couldn't react. Tore the bait up and split in a blink.
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Got the spread out and started to work the hell out of it. 
