After watching the weather all week I knew if I wanted to get Kevin out who is down from Wisconsin, we would need to sneek out Friday morning. We hit the ramps by 4:30am this morning. As we were pulling away from the dock the bait guy was pulling into Sandsprit Park so we opted to turn around an pick up some baits just in case. Usually after the winds blow we have a harder time locating the baits.

We hit all the usual spots for some more baits with no luck. The water clarity was bad but the temp was 78 degrees. It was now starting to get lighter out so we ran south to Bullshark and managed to pick up some Sardines and Cigar minnows in short order. We headed offshore before 7am to start the day fishing early. Winds are suppose to switch and come out of the N, NE around 1:30-2:00pm and start blowing.









We stopped at Shrimpers to check out the baits there for future reference and were swarmed by AJ's... Kevin was immediately hooked up but we opted to leave them and continue eastward. We found a nice weedline in 130ft straight out from SLI and set-up to slow troll a few sardines for a couple minutes to see what we can scare up.







FISH ON... Kevin hooks up within minutes and brings a short fin to the boat for a quick few pics and release.













We opted to leave the small fins and run out to try our luck with BFT. We trolled all over with not one bite. Made one drift with some liveys with no luck as well. Pulled in the gear and ran south to the ledge in 300ft off the Loran Tower. We put out the Daisy Chains again as I have hooked some nice BFT here in the past. Minutes later Kevin hooks up another fin.

I tell Kevin to slow down (reeling) a bit so I can clear the other chain and when he did he felt a long pull on his line then nothing. This is what he reels up :eek3:





The weeds in this area were getting to be a pain in the butt to keep clearing so we ran back to our hook-up point and made a drift with some liveys. I squirted out some Menhaden oil and tossed in some dines. Heres the slick from the oil...



I kept the livey in this slick to about 3/4 spool and bingo, FISH ON...



Kevin with his biggest fin of the day... Congrats Kevin :thumbup: How was dinner?



We hooked up another one earlier but it got chased around the boat by a large cuda and the line got cutoff on the trim tab... We pulled out of here (320ft) and opted to start running in closer to hit that weedline we found on the way out this morning as we new the seas were gonna be kicking up soon.

We got covered up with these guys - Love Bugs due to the westerly winds...



Heres the rip we found and began our slow trolling of liveys back north in hopes of making it past the inet before the winds changed to come from the north...



We felt the cool breeze from the north, the winds started to howl. Lets just say we were 9 miles SE from SLI and looked at a very wet ride back in. We put on the rain gear for the ride in. It was one nasty ride back in (wave wise) against the winds and waves now busting south from the north. A solid 4 to 6ft seas and coming from every which way at times. :eek3:

I've been caught in worse as there was no thunder or lightning this time, but they were the kind of seas you had to pay close attention too as some of these waves you can't take sideways... :eek3:

As we were getting closer to the SLI we got behind a large yacht and followed them in. Gave a shout out to the captain to make a hard left as he was heading to the sandbar on the right side of the SLI... He did and didn't hit bottom... :thumbup: Don't think he was from around here.

Todays Tally:

4 Fins - 1 for Kevins Dinner...
1 AJ

How did you all do today?

Tip of the day: 4/29/2011:

Additional Windshield to help stay a little less wet:





Mine is made out of 1/8” thick Plexi-glass but my brother recommends using Lexan. He gave me this one and made a new one for his Robalo out of Lexan and it is much stronger. I picked up some thicker Plexi-glass at Home Depot thinking thicker would be better and cut out a nice one that goes all the way up to the bottom side of the T-Top. I drilled holes in my T-Top supports and mounted it with rubber washers between the Plexi-glass and the aluminum to give it added give. I drove from home to the gas station on its maiden voyage and it cracked under the pressure of the winds hitting it from just pulling the boat. Hence the reason for Lexan. This one still works fine. I just use wire ties to hold it on with spare ties on the boat just in case. My brother use Velcro straps so it can be removed during towing which is what I should have done with the new one I made.

Hope this helps someone out :thumbup:

On another note: I wanted to say Thank You to Mo and Eryk Collings from T-Rex Entertainment for the awesome job they did DJ'ing at my daughters wedding last weekend. Heres a link for those who might need an a great DJ team for any occasion.

http://www.facebook.com/TRexEntertainment

Heres the Bride (Jamie) and Groom (Andrew):