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We started the day getting down the the l & h sportfishing boat a beautiful older well kept 46 hatteras in prestine condition!!!
were met in the morning by the captain jimmy and his mate geoffrey. what a nice couple of guys as usual.. been chartering the l & h since my first trip down there for my 12th birthday in 1996..
the same plan as usual and nothing ever changes with these guys.. when we get there the boat is warmed up and the sabiki rods are out! we get on the boat, store the coolers and away we go. we come out of the slip at crandon marina and come around into biscayne bay and around towards the shipping terminals on the other side of the cruise ship terminals and begin around the dolphin bouys for bait.. tried the d and c bouy but nothing was there at all.. we came around and tried a different location for some bait but did not really find anything worth looking so buh bye we were out!!
as we have in the past we normally ended up right at governors cut looking for bait and we sure found them! caught a chit load on sabikis and had about 75 baits in the box.. caught a few sand perch along with some grunt for bottom fishing and decided we neede some more so we ran over to the ferry terminal for fisher island and found tons of bait!! we got them chummed up pretty good with the block chum and had tons of bait on sabikis. the mate geoffrey came out and threw two nets to these balls of bait and loaded us up with over 300 small baits for chumming liveys and also another 100 or so bigger ones for baits..
the day before was good down there but it slowed dramatically when we got down there. we went out and set up for sails with the riggers out and trolled 2 baits off each rigger and a flat line..
didnt have much doing on but had a nice king come up and we got him next to the boat and released him. after a while or nothing going on and no fish captain jimmy decided he had enough and wanted to run in and look for some cobia.. we ran into the shallows and started looking around for a while but did not find anything and the water was alittle dirty so we ran back out to deeper water and set up for sails again.
a few hours later he had gotten really pissed with no wind to fly our kites that he decided to do some bottom fishing..
broke out the bottom fishing gear and drifted over some structure for about an hour and had 4 strikes but nothing was sticking! we bottom fished with 80s and braid and bridles grunts and blue runner! these fish pulled hard as hell but nothing took the hook just half the bait!!
after that was played out we decided it was time to make a move with the high tide rolling in we made our way over to the cobia grounds once again.. motoring around we couldnt spot any rays until a friend of captain jimmy made the call to him and told him he found them.. we ran up but there was already about 10 boats around the school of rays and cobia and once we got in the fleet we couldnt get a good shot as boats were screaming all over the place trying to fight fish and get out of each others way..
it was getting late and we were running out of time so we ran to the range again and started ot get things ready and this time we had enough wind for the kites!!!we set up the kite and set 2 baits on the kite and we set one flat and also one deep..
we had a big mahi come into the area but didnt want to eat but one of the 25 peanuts behind him decided to show down and take a bite of the flat line and we got a small mahi in the box for some yummy dinner!!
after we set the flat bait out we hear jimmy start yelling and running towards a billing fish ahead.. we pitch it out but the little bastage decides to just slowly creep back to the depth.. this happened 3 more times as we were running and gunning towards them for them to just sniff our baits and swim away slowly..
we waited and starting to continue to chum liveys and all of a sudden we get a yell from the tower...
left long, left long,, he is on the left long... i pick it up before he gets to the bait and free spool that baby back to him.. jimmy yells down hes got the bait and i lock it up and snatch that baby!! fish on!!
the baits still in the water jimmy yells down again.. one on the short one on the short.. geoffrey takes that and drops it back and we got two on now.. hands the rod to my father and away we are playing shuffle over and under as the fish continue to jump and rip across the water.
as we are starting to back down on these two fish jimmy starts yelling holy farkingshitbatman there is 6 fish under them!!
get some baits out.. we start chumming them heavy and they are coming in and slopping through our baits!! we got 2 on and 6 more in the back of the boat.. we ***** baits to them at all angles and they come up and looks and leave.. we did everything and we could not get these other fish to bite!!!
i turned around and told the mate i wanted to leader my own fish and he said no problem bro!!
i got my fish up the side of the boat first and slammed that rod in the holder and grabbed that leader!! got that fish to the side of the boat and brought him in for a quick shot and way he went.. my father was still on his fish and got it to the boat in short order afterward...
the bobber marker hit the tip and we had the leader.. as i leadered the fish he decided to try and greyhound away from the boat but i had that leader and he just flopped and flipped over and came along side.
got a group pic of me and my father with the sail and back in to live on for another fish again!!
we kept up on the sails for another hour until we had to pack it in for the day.. we got our double and got to see 6 more eating behind the boat but 2 sails is better then no sails!!
we went home happy especially when not another flag was flying in the area on our way in!! what a good feeling man!!
captain jimmy and his mate geoffrey were top notch and all you could ask for in a crew..
they are great guys and now i know why i continue to pay and go fish with these guys as much as possible and can not wait until next year when we go for a week and get to tourney fish with them... couldnt get jimmy charted on saturday because he was to busy winning the tourney down in isla at the cheeca lodge!! these boys are good and truly another trip of a lifetime!!
and just for marty and whitey... i will have pics up tonight so you can see them!!
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Originally Posted by ccrods
