Port Saint Lucie Mixed Bag Offshore

[Alwaysforward]

Did a 5 a.m. exit this morning with hopes of getting a head start on the bait with the reports from the past few days with slim pickens of baits around. Matt & Gary are aboard the AF this morning in hopes of bending some rods on some fish box fish…

Gary is a Palm Beach County school teacher who just recently moved down here from New Jersey who has also worked for the New York Giants. Two Giants fans against Matt who is a Pats fan... Ought to be a fun day :grin

As we pull out of ramp Matt remembers he had a box of chum in his car. Man that would have been a real bummer opening up that car at the end of a long hot day! We started our bait hunt at the NE spot with no luck. Ran down to Bullshark to cuban coffee water and few small baits before daylight. Got a shout out from Shoeless that he had a hoo in the box highspeed trolling on the Hill by 7:30 a.m.... Congrats Sean :beer



Now that the sun came up we started picking up small goggle eyes and blue runners. No sardines. We ran out to Shrimpers and started picking up small sardines, blue runners and then it turned to Hornbellys...



Daymaker pulled up but left before I could snap a picture. Will get one next time Pat. Scuppers pulls up to join in the action... How did you Mike and your other crew member make out today Paula?





Ran to a few other spots with not much more but a couple of grunts. It is now past 8:30am so we went out with what we had torward the Hill. Arrived on the Hill at 9:00am (an hour later than I wanted to be there by)... First drift along the top of the ledge in 280ft with live sardines produced Matt his first fish in the box.

The smile says it all... Skipjack in the box.



We drifted baits until 10:30am with no other bites. With the seas not quite flat enough yet for running a gunning for fins we decided to run back in to the AJ spot to see if we can put Gary on a AJ. We drift some large blue runners over the wreck 3 or 4 times with no luck. We switch over to chunk baits and Gary hooks up on the first drift. Current here by the way was almost non-existant. :applause





After a 10 minute fight to the boat, Gary brings up a chair :grin...



We had fun with that the rest of the day. :grin...

Next drift produced a short Black Sea Bass. Congrats Gary on catching your first ever Black Sea Bass :applause



Matt brings up a baby fish... :grin





Garys hooked up again... We are hoping for a matching table :grin



He catches a double header this time of Black Sea Bass...



The seas have flattened out at 1:30pm so we begin our run out deep. We get into 300ft and spot a small 2x4 that had a bird on it. Matt caught a fin off this same senerio a month ago so we had high hopes...



Gary catches another first. A Bonita.



Matt catches a 5ft shark at the same time.





CLICK THE PIC BELOW TO SEE A UNDERWATER VIDEO SHOWING BOTH FISH NOTED ABOVE




We continue eastward and in 800ft straight out from Push Button Hill I spot a floating log about twelve feet long off the Port side. We get the baits ready and pull up and it is loaded up with large Banded Rudder Fish. No fins in sight but knew if we started chunking we would get them to appear. A minute later and we are covered up with over 50+ fins. Let the Chinese Fire Drill begins.

We had a hard time getting past the Rudder fish but we ended up boxing 3 fins, one gaffer and Matt caught his first ever Wahoo. :beer



This smile says just how happy Matt was to catch his first Hoo...



Here is Gary with his first ever Fin.



Love the smiles... Congrats to both of you for checking off some firsts today :beer



We also caught this Trigger. Does anyone know what kind it is?





The Wahoo ate a small goggle eye and the fins were caught on a mixed bag of dines and goggle eyes. Matt had on a couple real nice Gaffer Fins on his Wax Wing lure but they spit the hooks during their aerial acrobats.

We lost sight of the log and after a 1/2 hour search with no luck we decided to dial in the Sandpile and finish out the day there.

We spotted this on the way in with nothing chewing at 140ft...



Today’s Tally

3/10 Fins
1 Wahoo
4 Banded Rudder Fish
1 Skipjack
2 Bonita
1 Atlantic Sharpnose Shark
1 Atlantic Reef Shark
4 Black Sea Bass
1 Trigger Fish - Type unknown
1 Baby fish - Matts :grin
1 Tired fishermen (me) after being on the water from 4:30am till 5:30pm... We had a blast for sure but I am glad I took a vacation day on Tuesday to re-coop.

As always, you both welcome aboard the AF anytime. :beer It was nice meeting you today Gary. I hope we can fish again soon :beer.

How did everyone else make out today?

Tip of the day

Here are a few maintenance tips that I posted before the system crash so some of you have already seen this.

Pick up some Silicone spray (cheapest I found is CRC Silicone from Wal-mart - $2.17). Twice a month, spray the entire motor. Remove the cowling and wipe down the motor to remove all debris and oils then spray the entire motor with the Silicone. Next, thoroughly clean the outside of the motor below the cowling and dry. Then spray the entire outside of the motor with Silicone. Tilt the motor up and down to insure you cover all areas and moving parts get covered.

Another thing people forget to clean is the Seastar steering shaft. Crank the steering back and forth while keeping the hose on the steering shaft and rinse thoroughly. I learned the hard way (thank goodness for my warranty). My steering shaft had pitted due to not cleaning it thoroughly and it had to be replaced.

Hope this helps someone…

http://www.teleflexmarine.com/wp-con...aroutboard.pdf

My Other Honey picture I took about a month ago produce some interesting features once zoomed in.



When zoomed in can you make out what is in these pictures







Random pics on the day