It’s as slick as glass again today (7/20) but I had a last minute cancellation, so i actually have so time to put up a report!
7/19 – Again, it was like a sheet of glass today and I had two great folks aboard – Dan and his wife Monica. We started off the morning with a shark blitz behind a shrimp trawler – we landed two nice black-tips and we even got a couple to hit a top-dog! After that we charged offshore lookin’ for the dolphin.
…and we found them instantly. Bailers…everywhere we went. We caught them all day long, singles, doubles triples – we kept around 20, releasing more than a few. At the end of the day we even got into a nice school of them – but instead of bailing them, we played around with them using jigs and top-dogs. Awesome stuff!!!
7/18PM – When I dropped my crew off around lunch-time, I got a call from my good buddy Captain Scott Crocker who was getting off early for the day. As it was still slick calm, he grabbed one of his park employees and we charged offshore looking for some dolphin. After making the run out going nearly 30 knots, we put out the lines and had our first knockdown within 2 minutes of setting the first flat line. After that it was constant – tons of good-sized bailer dolphin.
It was then that our starboard flat line got hammered and nathan picked up the rod and a nice 14 pount cow started to tail-walk. As I went to clear the short rigger, a big 25 pound bull snaked in behind it and hammered it – and i actually got to catch a fish! Then the other flat-line went and scott had another 15 or so pound cow on. As we did a fire drill around the boat, scott got his fish in first and while trying to gaff it himself the line wrapped around the rod and it popped…and he was very dissapointed. But we still got the other two in! After that we picked away at some more bailers, landing 10 and keeping 8 fish. We also had a screamer wahoo slam one of our flat-lines and pulled the hook after he took out 300+ yards of line.
In addition, we got boarded by the USCG on the way in – once again, extremely professional and curteous individuals!
7/18AM – If yesterday was calm, today was calmer. With no ground swell or wind – the ocean was a solid sheet of glass. It was also really hot and I told my crew, Bob and his 16 yr old son (and his friend) from Cleveland, that it was going to be a tough day nearshore. They weren’t interested in big sharks or chasing after kings or dolphin offshore – and they decided they would take their chances with the big spanish and flounder nearshore. We found the big spanish quickly but they were very, very picky. Even though i was chumming heavily with beautiful live mullet we had to work our butts off for strikes – and we had probably 10 short strikes on mullet all morning but never got the hook into a fish. We tried to flounder fish but I couldn’t get the boys to find any interest in it so we called it a day and ran in. What a slow, tough day – sorry guys, but somtimes that’s fishing.
7/17 – Today I fished with a great group of folks – the Harry crew from Burlington. The ocean was as slick as glass and we headed out to the flounder grounds. Everyone had the hot hand early on and we put a half-dozen nice flattiesi n the box in the first hour (and released several border-line world record oyster-toads). Before we could put a hurtin’ on ’em we had to call it an early day due to a sick crew member.
Sorry, left my camera at home today – so no pics.
7/16 – Today I again I had the pleasure of fishing with regular client Gregg Duke, a member of his usual crew and a couple new faces. The weather was very pretty – a light breeze but with some residual swell left over from the hard South blow.
Flounder was on our plate today and it was slow and steady – we picked away at them at a very steady pace. We put 6 nice keepers in the box before we had to call it a day due to a couple sick crew members. We probably would have wrapped up with 10 to 12 fish given a few more hours – but we couldn’t do that at the expense of everyone else. The water was a little cloudy so the big spanish and kings were absent – i couldn’t raise them to my kite baits to save my life.
Allison and Richard with their catch!
