Taking Chuck out today. Goal is to hopefully pick up a couple BFT with my new rig then run and gun for fins. When I arrived there were mullet every. So after setting up the boat I tried my hand again at tossing the net once again. The whole time I am looking over my shoulder for the family members of that Pelican that bit the dust a month ago :grin….. Just kidding.

I managed to fill up boat livewell’s before Chuck showed up even though I never got the net to open up all the way. I did managed to open it up about the size of a Pelican though and that was big enough. Yeah, I had to toss it 30 times but I got those wells filled :grin.

When Chuck showed up and I told him I filled both wells with mullet the first thing he said was, how many Pelicans did you take down. :grin We exited the east ramp @ 5:30am with no issues at low tide and after checking the ramps out yesterday at high tide it looks like the flooding issue has receded.

The SLI had flat seas with the northwest winds even at the end of an outgoing tide. No issues with the passing. All buoys were in there normal locations since prior to the big Blow…

Ran to the NE spot for some more baits with nothing doing there at all. Ran down to Bullshark and found no baits there as well. Headed to Shrimpers with the same MO. Hit Evans Crary and marked some baits there but opted to just head to the Hill after one drop and no bites on the sabiki.

We arrived at PBH just as the light of day was peeking over the horizon. It was real sporty from 200ft to the Hill as the NW winds hitting the Gulfstream really stacked up the waves. I made a new rig to put in front of my Daisy chains. If it works, I will post it in my tip of the day below. Chuck brought his own new lure that he wanted to try out for tuna without a chain.

Lines in the water before 7:00am, Chucks lure puts a fish in the box at 7:10am… Gotta love it when a plan comes together. :grin



We reset and my new rig gets hit as I am letting it out. 2nd BFT hits the box. It must have been that Turbo Rattler...







Not bad, two BFT in the box before the sun rises…





We get into the Bonita in 400ft on both new rigs so we pulled in the lines and ran back up to the southern tip up on the shelf and dropped in the lines once again. Here is Vindawg trolling the Hill. He hooked up a sailfish right next to us but it came unglued. How did you guys make out today Vinny?



Bam, Chucks line goes off and we now have our third BFT in the box. I asked Chuck if he wanted any more or if he wanted to hunt for some debris for fins.

That took all of 2 seconds and we are putting away the tuna gear and outriggers and pointing the bow towards the sun. According to Windfinder the winds were to lay down around 11:00am so we figured the ride in would be good by then. We made our way out to 1500ft with not one piece of debris to be found.

We spotted a 3ft patch of weeds that was covered up with baits so we worked that for about an hour chunking baits, Menhaden milk & oil with nothing doing. Here is the slick we made…



We tossed lives on the surface, down below with the instant downriggers as well as trolled some ballyhoo around it with not one knock down.

It is now around 12:00 noon and the seas/winds haven’t calmed down at all. We dialed in the southern tip of the Hill and made our way back. Took us an hour to get to the Hill. We dropped in the lines and trolled north along the ledge and Chucks line starts screaming. As he gets his fish to the boat a Sailfish swims right up to the boat and I toss a livey out at him that we still had rigged and as it hits the surface the Sail swims right up to it then turns and swims away.

Come to find out that bait was dead. I quickly rig a mullet and toss it out and he swims up to it and turns away again. He hung around the boat for about 10 minutes with not being interested with anything we had to offer. We dialed in the Sandpile in hopes of finding something fishable between here and there.

We get to about 70ft and hear another captain give a shout out to My Other Honey and one of Pete’s crew gets on the radio and said they were heading in the inlet. The other captain said that they just put a nice gaffer in the box at 60ft. We kept motoring west and came up to a nice rip with lots of debris but no weeds on it.

We dropped in the hoos and started trolling northward. Within ten minutes Chucks line goes off but the fish never jumped. We didn’t know what we had on until we can see the green fin breaking the surface he was passing the boat 50 yards out. As Chuck gets the fin close it looked like it wasn’t hooked good so I quickly gaffed him and he hit the deck going berserk.







I normally gaff them and they go right from the water and into the fish box but didn’t have time. Gotta love the bloody deck though. We had blood everywhere. I tell Chuck we need to get back up to our start spot so we can troll through that area again. We can clean up the blood after we get lines in the water.

I hand Chuck another hoo and opted to switch skirts on my hoo to a smaller one before we started our track back south. As we pull up to our start spot we look back and Chucks rod is spooled. Chuck nor I didn’t realize that his line was in the water in freespool. As Chucks reeling in a sporty comes cruising by and cuts off his line. Line can be replaced but that small black & red Iland Jr was priceless.

I grab the lure bag and Chuck grabs a black & purple Iland Jr and we are now rigged back up to head north once again. We get about 300 yards past the last hook-up spot and Chucks rod goes off again.





We continue north and passed another boat giving them a heads up that we just put a couple of gaffers in the box a few hundred yards back.

JC hears us talking on the radio who was heading in and decides to turn around am come back to that rip in 60ft. We get about 5 miles north of the SLI Chucks line gets hit again. I was next to the rod so I picked it up and the fish came unglued. It was pushing 3pm. We decide to pull the lines and make a run back to our start spot and make one more run through that area.

We pass JC who was drifting some livey’s. As we stop at our start point, JC gives us a shout out that he had a double header on and boxed a gaffer. Great job JC…

Here is JC as we trolled back by him heading north.







With no more knock downs we decided to call it quits. We pull into the ramp a little after 4:00pm with 74 miles put on the AF today. Cleaned up the boat and bag up the rest of the mullet for chunk baits for future trips.

Today’s Tally

3 BFT
4 Bonita
2/3 Fins

Your welcome aboard the AF anytime Chuck. I had a blast today. :USA

How did you all make out today?

Tip of the day

I made this rig up to be able to rig to any Daisy Chain. The distance from the loop to the snap swivel is the same distance between each of the squids on a Daisy Chain.



That is an 8oz lead beneath that squid. Ahead of that sinker is a Turbo Rattler. I have used this in the past ahead of a skirted hoo with no luck. Been in my tackle box for years and decided I would give it a try once again. I made two rigs. One with the Rattler and one without.



The theory here is to get this chain to run sub-surface in hopes of attracting some bigger BFT. As proven by today’s report it worked but didn’t produce the large BFT I was hoping for. It did produce a large Bonita so hope is still out.



Random pics on the day



















Special Thanks too:

I want to thank Pro Boats for getting my boat maintenance completed this week. Anyone looking for great service from a family owned business, stop in at Pro Boats just south of Indian Street on SE Dixie Highway in Stuart. Kevin is a certified Yamaha mechanic.

http://www.proboatsofstuart.com/

Captains Peter Morello of My Other Honey and Scotty Fawcett of Off The Chain Fishing for giving me a heads up on the inlet and the bite this past week. Much appreciated Captains :applause

http://www.stuartflsportfishing.com/directions.html

http://www.offthechainfishing.com/rates.php