Shared Delusion

Happy fishing, 
Eric

Happy fishing, 
Eric

After the past few deep runs we decided to try inshore. The 120-140 feet depths seem cleaned of life, we cannot figure out whats up.
So we decided to go to what we call Cobia Country, or the Betty Rose / tug boat area. Its about 40 feet deep. We had really good surface bait sign. Even schools of Ballyhoo jumping! We tied up to the bouy and caught a Spanish immediatly. anothejr boat was on the Tugboat. I though i say a pilot whale at one point. But it was a pair of divers that surfaced with our boat inbetween!!! We had motored right over them :0 no dive flag or nothing. They swam by the boat and gave us some intel on the fish below, but it was odd to see them pop up next to us like that. We moved over to the Tugboat per thier good advice. On shrimp and small gear caught some small keeper mangrove snappers. We caught another Spanish mackeral. The tugbot was covered in Ballyhoo and cigar minnows - its was great to see an area alive again. Its the kind of fishing i enjoy. We caught some really undersized red grouper, and a small Gag. Oddly I caught a Lane snapper and a yellow tail snapper - both not bigger than 6 inches, but it was cool all the same. We had some nice cut offs and runs but did not connect.

It was a nice day to be out on the water and see lots of fish action.

Happy fishing, 
Eric

We got many threadfins atthe skyway with our new open net - it was sooo much easier than the small holed net.

We headed to the pride area, kind of wavy out so we had to go SW for a while. some flying fish but no sargasum at all. stopped in 120 feet to find a ledge. Robert caught a Little Tunny on a sardine at the bottom. terry caught a small shark. We dropped again a mile away and Terry caught a 20 Red Grouper.

We went to the Hard bottom SW of the Pride and got skunked - so signs of life any where. Even the shrimp we dropped did not get eaten

On to the wreck. We caught some undrsized Amberjack. Hooked into some very large ones, but all in all no one was catching anything. Not a very Fishy day, but it was fun, weatehr was beautiful

Happy fishing, 
Eric

We decided to start real early - maybe too early. We could not find any baits on the flats or by the skyway. Other reports of bait we good - so we must have just left early. So we trecked on with shrimp and sardines. The sardine problem appears solved, New sardines from India were perfect. We did not see much bait out Egmont channel, except one small school. For the entire trip out - not a single surface bait crashing or feeding

We stopped at the Whitsler bouy and saw a guy sabiki up some Spanish sardines but we did not want to cramp him and at the rate he was bring them in, we did not feel the effort was worth it. One to the Area S/SW of the Mexican pride, our target for the day. Once we hit 110-130 feet the bottom showed no signs of life. I was frustrated, the bottom should have some showing. We motored around a few spots - some out to 138 feet - All SW of the pride. Really just stopping to ping the bottom for a minute or two. Terry said, can we jsut drop while we decide? Next thing you know, four baits - 4 keeper Red Grouper, One was released due to 3 people on the boat. One grouper was so hungry it ate both Roberts and Terrys baits - it was a half hookup? I dropped Shrimps that got nipped off. One drop got a 13″ triggerfish. But still the depth finder showed hard bottom but no life signs????? It seems once we hit 100 feet or so, it takes some big fish to make the depth finder pickup anything. Only sharks, AJ’s, huge grouper and bait balls 20′ across make the screen So I will adjust my tactics for that area next time. I only wish we could catch other fish besides the Red Grouper, their are too many of them and they are so aggressive, they take anything before a snapper or even a grunt. I dont like to watch one float away, so its better to just stop. We spent 10 minutes saving the 4th one, but eventually it swam to the depths of its own accord.

Having maxed out on Red grouper in 15 minutes, we decided to try the Mexican pride. The Pride had schools of Crevalle Jacks, spade fish, Amber Jacks, Almaco Jacks?, and Barracuda all near the surface. It was very cool to see so many fish. Also many deep water looking jellys and chain jellys went by us. They had a neon blue and red spots on a perfectly clear body, not the normal white or yellow bodies ones. Nothing took a bait but the night before was the 2nd night of full moon, so it was to be expected. The boat next to us caught some Amberjacks on a jig and a tube lure! We tried it and Robert hooked up twice but lost it due to cutoffs or Goliaths?

Over all the fishing was not so great but the trip was terrific. The weatehr was beautiful, blue skys, slick water, no wind. The 2 hour trip back was easy - I trimed the boat out and it drove itself with only a few adjustments. Most of the time back was trying to stay awake - i had taken a full draminine

Next time 1/2 and more coffee

Happy fishing, 
Eric

Robert and Terry’s report. Water was flat. They tried for bait on the flats by the skyway but it was all small, just some pinfish caught. They stopped by the reef off bunces pass and there were many schools of blue runners and skip jacks - no action. Cobia country was next - tons of blue runenrs and skipjacks , caught mackeral on spoon, caught a huge 5′ kingfish but cut off on prop. Robert was quite disapponted. Many kingsfish attacks on bait schools but no more hookups, so they left to go to the Betty Rose. Much better here, on small spoons some big spanish mackeral. Came across a patch of red tide on the way in.

Happy fishing, 
Eric

RJH and TLH had taken the boat to Boca Grande and Sanibel for the weekend. On Monday May 29th, they stopped by a artifical reef and with silver spoons, it was non-stop fishing action on Spanish Mackeral - from morning thru 1:00.

The reef was in 20 feet off the beach south of Anna Maria Island

Happy fishing, 
Eric

We had bought some weird spotted sardines from SE Liquidators. We also stocked up on shrimp at O’Neils. Today was a pure surface action day.

We wstopped at the Betty Rose and it was covered in schools of barracuda - very odd behavior - I’ve not seen them school up before. We had a huge and i mean HUGE barracuda jump 5 feet out of the water just behind the boat - it cut a wire leader! We all saw the jump. It was incredible. The belly of ‘cuda bounced a little bit it was so fat. I’d estimate 5 feet long and much thicker than a football. We caught a little Tunny but it got cut in half

we left after that and planned on stopping at surface action but none appeared. We did see many flying fish between 40-60 feet deep. In fact we saw the most action south of the betty rose.

At 70 Feet, on the way to grouper country, we saw about 9 boats in a long line, so we stopped and drifted with the group. On a sardine! RJH caught a keeper Kingfish on the drop. It tangled our lines and I hand lined it in for the gaff. I had the idea that if this was good, 80 feet hard bottom would be better. So we left. Just off of the drift a few 100 yards was a lot of good hits on the bottom. We also say many school hitting the surface but we could not tell what they were.

The Grouper country at 80 feet was deviod of life on the bottom. We did see many small Mahi Schools but no other activity. We dropped by the Sheridan and not much was happening there either.

On the way back home, We stopped back at the betty rose and chummed with dead baits for 30 min with no takers.

Happy fishing, 
Eric

The weatehr looked good, but as soon as we turned out of Egmont channel it was brutal waves. We tried the skyway for some mackeral - tons of bait! Schools were so dense the dark spots were visable from far away. We say one rolling tarpon but no fish activity at all. After a wind blown hour or so we bailed and headed in.

We got skunked. Hopefull next weekend will be better conditions.

Happy fishing, 
Eric

 

I had a plan…

It failed horribly.

We were going to go out further than ever before and try to catch some Red Snapper. I was so confident, i dragged Gregg out to partake in the cooler filling action. Right off the bat, the marina was out of sardines (kind of expected) and no shrimp. My plan relied on many shrimp. So we got some finger mullet - a poor subsititute. We had a box of sardines left, but due to multiple thaws and freezes they were now mushdines. A stop on the flats for white bait with three throws filled both bait wells and 1/2 gallon of dead chum baits. As any experienced fisherman knows - you can have to much live bait. The curse of perfect throws over massive schools is all the biats die in the bait well - not enough water move thru them to keep them oxygenated. So once we got out deep - we had about 20 left

We left out Egmont channel, thru probably 100+ boats fishing for kingfish. It was unbelievable. Some people expressed frustration towards us, but there was no place to go. I got many hands flow up in but i always split the difference between two boats whn passing thru much of them and tryied to cut ahead rather than behind them, figuring they were trolling. I felt I had the right of way and never came close to clipping any ones lines. I can’t imagine what it was like at 2:00 in the afternoon.

We stopped at our first numbers in 110 feet SE of the mexican pride. We did see some signs of fish below, but after a few test drops and no bites we moved on. Next stop was 130 Feet South and SW of the Pride. All the spots I had looked desolate. Only one new spot showed up that looked good, but nothing took our lame baits and the wind / current was not too cooperative for the drop.

So I gave up on my Red snapper plan and we left for the Mexican Pride. Only two boats were over the wreck! Both boats were friendly. Once we anchored up, we were a bit off the wreck, but still managed some nice mangrove snappers and some yellowtails. I caught 2 small groupers that I could not identify, maybe strawberry or scamps? Kind of slow day, but we put 6 fish in the cooler. Everyone caught fish. Robert caught a massive Mangrove Snapper.

One of the other boats hand lined in 2 goliath groupers. They had trouble venting them, their first drifted to us, so we got to see one up close. I wish we had take a picture but it felt odd to take a picture of a fish we did not catch. We tried to vent it and i thought we had it, but the grouper never went down. They anchored up and saved the grouper. Our venting tool broke so I used the needlenose pliers

We decided to head back in, no signs of surface activity the whole way in until the 60-80 feet zone. We saw less than 10 flying fish - odd to be in shallow but not out deep. Also some good bait scools on the depthfinder. Some sargassum was in that zone too. The first real fish sign was mackeral crashing bait within a mile of egmont and desoto. We could have stopped but it was 7:00 and time to head in.

Happy fishing, 
Eric