Flying a Trio of Brian Rowe Award winners today offshore. Congrats to Kevin for being the most recent winner. Brian Rowe was the CEO of GE Aviation back in the eighties and early nineties and led the development of the CF6 & GE90 engines.

His son, David is on our Board of Directors and offer a yearly award in his dads memory. Thank You David.

http://www.aeroequity.com/tribute.aspx

Hey Mike, we had plenty of head room today :grin

Now to some fishing. Riley, Kevin and I exited the ramp around 5:30am this morning to calm seas. Hit the Bullshark Barge first and only managed to find some goggle eyes so we ran north to the NE spot and found only goggle eyes there as well. Ran out to the Sandpile and finally found the Sardines we were looking for. We also caught some blue runners to drop in at the AJ spot today with hopes of hooking up some large AJ’s…





We loaded up both wells by 8am and headed offshore to the Hill. We stopped at a couple of weed patches on the way with nobody home.





Got a shout out from LET’S GO looking for bait and gave him a heads up on the sardines at the Sandpile. How did you guys make out today Bo? When we stopped this boat cruised by us… Sharp looking boat…



We arrived to the Hill with a 5-6+ knot current which is a little fast for drifting some livey’s but we gave it a go. First drift did not produce and when we got to the end we spotted some BFT busting on the surface so we opted to put on the Daisy Chains and work our way back south while chasing the birds. No hits on this trip back so we switched back to dropping in the livey’s. We moved our drift line further west to see if they are up on the shelf.

Nothing doing this drift so we decided to make one more drift and started this drift off the ledge, further east. Kevin gets hooked up to his first ever BFT…



Congrats Kevin :applause The smile tells it all :beer



Gave Pete aboard the “My Other Honey” a shout out that we just hooked up to swing in behind us.



We made one more drift cutting our start point short in hopes of getting back on this same school with no luck. After seeing Pete run out deep and not finding any weeds we dialed in the AJ spot and headed NW from the Hill. On the way we spotted a large patch weeds so we pulled up and dumped a handful of chunked baits down, a few squirts of Menhaden oil and milk then dropped in some livey’s.

Shortly after drifting away from the patch is was the Chinese fire drill we were looking for. Riley brought the first fin to the boat with its buddies in tow. Kevin gets hooked up and we toss Riley’s fin in the box. We spotted others but they ran back to the weeds so we put Kevin’s in the box and ran back to the patch.



CLICK THE PIC BELOW TO SEE A SHORT VIDEO WITH THE NEW DIVE LENSE ON MY GO-PRO CAMERA OF KEVIN’S FIN



We get back to the patch just as another boat was drifting up to it so we stopped short and tossed some more chunks out an started another drift. As we got about a few hundred yards away Riley gets hooked up again. The key was to keep dumping line to keep that bait near the patch. Great job Riley :applause



By now the other boat as drifted through and away from the patch and didn’t get hooked up but we knew there was more fins there as we counted at least 5 on that first drift so we ran back up and started the chunking, oil and milk again and then drove past the patch and made another drift. The other boat left.

Riley gets hooked up again to the biggest of the fins so far. None of them were gaffers but good eats for sure :applause







For those heading out today, here was the location of these fins…



We made another drift and Riley gets hooked up again to a smaller fin that we tagged and released. We headed to the AJ spot to put down a few runners. After 4 or 5 drifts we never had a bite and headed to the Sandpile to finish out the day before the rains came. We stopped at a weedline in 75ft and had two mystery bites but never got connected.

We continued on to the Sandpile as the sky’s were getting darkened out west. They dropped in the last two Sardines and Kevin catches a Bonita in short order and with the rains approaching the inlet we made to call to run in and beat the rains.

Today’s Tally

1 BFT (The current was too fast to bring on the bite)
5 Fins – 1 tagged and released
1 Bonita
0/2 Mystery bites

You guys are always welcome aboard the AF anytime. I had a great time again today. :beer

How did you all make out today?

Tip of the day

This is my method of catching BFT when drifting live baits:

Catch some small sardines (approx. 5").

Head to Push Button Hills southern tip.

Use a Conventional reel with a lot of line

Use Fluorocarbon leader (my mainline is also fluorocarbon) and hook the bait crossways through the nose.

The key is to now keep that line moving. Drift until you get almost spooled. You will normally hook up by then but if not, adjust your start point east or west. In the morning hours they are up on the shelf. As the sun rises, they will drop off the ledge so you want to move east as the sun rises.

Make sure if you got more than one line out to keep that other bait moving once one is hooked up as you have a great chance of getting a double header. You also want to make sure you hit the mark button when you first get hooked up.

Now when you had back south to make that next drift, make sure you loop out away from your drift line as you run back south. You don't want to run over the school and drive them down deeper. If you hooked up on that first drift, head back to the exact same start point and drift it again. If you didn’t hook up until towards the end of your drift, then you can stop short of your start point but far enough away from your mark point so you give your baits a chance to get out far enough.

Good luck and I hope this helps you hook up to a BFT

For those of you who missed my report on how we troll for BFT, here is a link to my report showing you how to make a Daisy Chain.

http://forums.floridasportsman.com/s...Fishing-Report

Random pics on the day