5/14 – This morning I again had the pleasure of fishing with Henry and his father – last year Henry, hiw wife Susan and I put a hurtin’ on the flatties and spanish . Well, the weathermen were a bit wrong today. It was nice on the way out but it started building quickly. We had several good strikes early before we landed a Bonito and a 23.5″ King. Where did the Spanish go? No worries – we’ll get ’em tomorrow and the rest of the week!
We also sighted a HUGE 50-60lb “man in a brown suit” (aka – cobia) but it was really hard to see him in the low-light and over-cast conditions. We got a cast to him – but lost him soon after that.
No pictures today – we called it an early day when the wind became a sustained 20 knots. I know I’ll see you comin’ back for some reds this summer or fall!
5/13 – Today was an absolute adventure. Well, first of all – things are always an adventure with Mr. Brant Connor…and throw in his son Jim and his friend Ron and things just get off the hook. We found them biting this morning – withn 10 minutes of arriving we put a nice spaniard, 2 king mackerel and Ron’s first Bonito ever – a nice 5lb fish – in the box. It slowed down for a bit and we were unable to troll up a bite.
So we hung out – chasing scattered spanish before Jim hooked a 23″ spaniard on a stingsilver and landed his first Bonito – another 5lb fish that slammed his stingsilver right at the gunnel!
About this time things went INSANE – a huge school of Bonito mixed with big spaniards started churning the surface and we had instant hook-ups – and we landed 2 FAT 8pounders! After that I headed in to pick up my afternoon – WHAT A DAY GUYS!!!!!
5/13PM – This evening I fished with Bill and his lovely wife Renee – we hit the marshes looking for some red dawgs. I was able to get my new jones brothers bateau way back on some marsh flats – jacked-up I can run it less than 6 inches of water.
We worked the water hard – spooking a lot of fish. But the water was cloudy and the fish a little finicky – we did manage a couple of gold spoons but the bite was definitely off…at least the fish are there though! Next year we’ll got after some Bonito 😉
5/12 – This morning I had the pleasure of fishing with DaveDownEast and WaltS. Holy crap we had a lot of fun. We got out early and found big schools of spanish mackerel and scattered bonito. The bite wasn’t red hot but was instead steady all morning. These two stooges landed a half-dozen spaniards early, some blues before we got into the Bonito – they were mostly small today and we boated 3 or 4 in the 2lb range. We also caught out first WaterDog king mackerel of the year – a nice eatin’ size 25 incher. My buddy Scott Crocker also got a shot at a cobia – put a cast in the face of a 30 or so pounder that came to suck on his lower unit…but it wasn’t hungry.
I think Walt put it best – “Chartering you is worth it just because you’re so much fun to mess with.” Haha! Y’all are a riot to be around – you’re welcome any time.
5/11 – The weathermen got this one wrong. I went to sleep expecting to cancel but woke up at 4:30am to see slick calm conditions and no wind…and a great window of weather to fish. So I called my clients and told them to get ready – but they were concerned that it might get windy (it didnt), that it might rain (nothing on the radar) or that the drop in barometric pressure would kill the bite (doesnt effect bonito). So they forfeited their deposit and passed – perfect conditions and i lose a day of work. So I work up lovely katie and we took our time, got some donuts and pushed off about 7:45am.
We found the bonito busting and left them busting. We fished for a little over an hour landing 6 to 8 of the tunas and losing twice that many. We kept one for ceviche – and it just so happened to be one of the biggest I have ever landed – 9lbs.
