Fishing again! June roundup

Moment of truth after 6 months … do you believe it … 6 months of repair and maintenance activities.  Back in the water she goes and sea trials underway.

Robin and I started with an offshore run looking for mahi and tuna. It was a blue-bird day, seas were flat and full of boats. So we worked on offshore pretty deep to find space that open and fish that were not pressured. Robin, my ace fish finder, made it happen, and we picked up a dozen or so schoolies and teenagers. Depths were out to 2500 feet. There were a lot of fish out there, and nicely formed weedlines. The boat ran great, but I did have several small bugs to work through. All good, and fresh fish for dinner!

Next up vacation! It is June, and that brings Glen and Tom. They drove down to the keys and arrived on Saturday 6/13. Great to have them back in town. The basic plan for the week – fish our butts off!

Sunday 6/13 – back offshore. Similar plan to Robin’s and my trip the previous weekend. We trolledi ballyhoo and tuna baits offshore. Unfortunately we were bracketed in with thunderstorms and played the dodge the storm thing all day. We did get into fish, and picked up a nice group of schoolie dolphin. Nothing big but all tasty!

Monday 6/14-15 Bucket list trip for me. It looked like the weather was going to give us a couple good days, so we made the call to head way west to the tortugas. We invited our friend and neighbor Paul to join us, and loaded the boat with bait, chum, ice, food, drinks and 4 stinky guys and off we went. The plan was to spend Monday working our way toward the Tortugas and fish the reef on our way west. Overnight on the reef, and then work offshore and deep drop on Tuesday working our way back home.

The weather we saw was not what was forecasted. We had a southwest wind, 15 knots that we had to run directly into. I hugged the shoreline out past Key West, and then we turned pretty much directly into the seas off of Man Key. Once we got out on the reef we anchored on at least 10 different rockpiles and humps, and really got on no action at all. Disappointed we anchored up for the night near Rebecca Shoal, ate dinner and settled in for the night.

We had a visitor – a pelican decided he/she wanted to spend the night on the bow of the boat, and paul had to pretty much throw it off so he could find a sleeping spot. I wish I would have taken a picture of it … and the pelican extraction … those birds are huge! Also I learned that they are some slimy dirty birds. It left black grease all over everything, and when we got back home, Glen using dawn and a lot of elbow grease spent 2 or 3 runs scrubbing to get it off.

Next day after breakfast we headed offshore and tried deep dropping for Snowy Grouper and Golden Tiles, again without success. Weather moved in on us, so we made the mad dash back to shore and home. Long couple days … no fish ☹

Wednesday was devoted to cleanup, re-fueling, and bait fishing.

Thursday, back to the reef. We started south and west of Big Pine, and found good suspended fish shows in 65-70 feet right over the edge of the reef. Anchored up, chum blocks in and fishing started. Finally, we started catching – not heavy bu on t we did start picking up small yellowtail and a big g triggerfish. We kind of bounced our way down the reef as the day went moving toward the east, looking for a better bite

We ended up east of big pine and anchored up on a spot I call Mushroom rock.  Previous times that I have fished the area the current was so strong we could not fish it well.  On this day, the current was pretty much slack, almost too slack.  Chum out, baits down, and we did continue to catch small yellow tail.  Just like fishing, Glen saw his deep grouper rod bend in half and he pulled up a really nice black grouper.   30 minutes later both tom and glen’s rods bent in half and we pulled in another pair of grouper.  Limit done!

Gotta brag on Glen’s fish.  It measured over 35 inches, probably a 25 pound fish.  All of the blacks were big … inch thick filets!  We ended the day with 3 beautiful Black Grouper, a handful of yellow tail, and a trigger fish.

Robin did her thing for us and made a feast … trigger fish sashimi, tuna poke, grilled shrimp and prosciutto, and grouper.

Friday, Tom and I went back out to the Mushroom rock to try and find some more grouper without success. We pulled off the rock and then started checking patch reefs for Mangrove Snapper. We got on one fishy looking hump and as soon as we put the chum bag in the water, we got a ball of small yellow tail in the chum line. Awesome sight, it looked like a gold ball in the water! We actually did get into a Mangrove Snapper bite and brought home some nice ones, but slow.

Saturday, the guys were planning to leave so we decided to take a quick trip in the back country to one of my favorite fishing cuts.   Chum out, live baits in hand, Robin puts a bait out and immediately gets a big Mangrove Snapper.  This spot is fun fishing, with everyone catching lots of fish, and also getting abused by the resident goliath groupers that live there.

All in all – fishing was hot and cold, but the company was fantastic, and we are officially back on the water again!

Later – Bo