Rainy blowy Big Pine weekend 10/17- 18

Mid October blues! Been a month – seems like forever – since we have been down here, and it will probably be a while before we get back :(. Those are the breaks with busy schedules and what not. This weekend there is a front that is stalled in the straights of Florida, and it is pumping bands of rain and 20+ knots of wind primarily from the northeast. Around here, when the wind blows from the north, most folks just stay home! Then there is us .. 🙂

Weather patterns are certainly weird. This has been the wettest summer on record up in St Pete, but it was bone dry down here. Driving in this weekend though, there was standing water everywhere, so things have definitely flip flopped. The water is definitely stirred up from the winds, but cloudy from the runoff, and the temperature has dropped to 82.5 in the backwaters. My understanding is the bait is coming back inshore, and fish migrations are underway. Sure wish we had a chance at em!

I did talk robin into taking the skiff out Saturday morning for a bit, it looked like our best shot for the weekend. We took off for the channels around johnson key, and had to cross big Spanish channel straight into 2 – 3 foot chop. Needless to say robin was not impressed! We came through my favorite cut north of little pine key and came across this:

Anybody lose a 19 foot runabout? It was grounded on a bar, and will probably be a fixture there for now on. We do have a pretty big problem with abandoned boats around here. It is sad to see. This one was totally stripped, and the numbers scraped off the hull.

We went around the corner and went to a favorite spot in around 10 feet of water in the middle of rocky channel. The water was rocking pretty good and there was a ton of current and we had trouble seeing the hole. So Robin threw a marker when we were on top of the gps number, and we tossed anchor. I geared up and hopped in, a bit chilly but not too bad. I swam straight into the current to where I thought the hole was and was about to give up when I started to see the hole and rock field. I looked down and all I could see was antennas everywhere! I swam back to the boat, and we reset where I could pull down the anchor line to help fight the current.

The spot was pretty deep and I started diving and picking through the lobsters. I took me an average of three dives to root through the little ones and get to a keeper and chase him down. We ended up getting 5 nice ones in pretty quick order. There were several more keepers down there, but they went pretty deep in the structure, and I was flat out of air! I got back on the boat and we remeasured them all and ended up having to throw one back.

Robin had been watching the horizon and pointed out a front line that looked aweful wet and heading our way. So discretion being the better part of valor and we tucked tail and came back. So one drop, 4 lobsters .. I guess we can’t complain!

The rest of the weekend ended up being a washout, so we focused on chores around the house and goofing off. But she seafood loving floridians know, October 15th brings Stone Crabs! We figured no better time than now, and we got a half dozen large claws from Lower Keys Fishery.