1eyefishing
...just joking, seriously.
I just got back home from my saltwater inaugural trip to East Central Florida. I had a full week of fishing, friendship with old high school buddies, fantastic weather, and initiating my new Key West BayReef 230.
After moving myself into my longtime friends spare bedroom, we headed straight for Sebastian Inlet the next morning. We started off spot locking over the channel edge and dropping mud minnows and shrimp on jigs and fishfinder rigs.Within a span of about 20 minutes we had been freight-trained and broken off on three different rods of mine and one of my buddies. These fish showed absolutely no respect for a tight drag and just went where they wanted no matter what we did. I did get one fish very close to the boat and saw that it was a huge snook! The meat at the back of the tail was bigger around than my forearm and the tail fan was about 8 in wide. It made one last surge towards the bottom as its tail flipped up in the air and popped my line right there. Unfortunately right about then, the outgoing tide went slack and then turned to incoming.we had no more action for another 30 minutes or so, but it was a very exciting start for our fishing. We caught a few trout and snapper during the rest of the day, but wore selves out fishing in that near
blowout day. We were too beat to fish the next day. I spent the next day socializing with other old high schoolers of mine and my buddies little sister and friends... Hadn't seen some of them since the early 80s, the late 80s, or in the case of my host, I last fished with him there in 2004.
The weather was also a welcome break from a North Georgia winter. Each day was 80° to 85° with a southeasterly breeze. It was t-shirts and shorts and flip-flops all week!
We finished out the week fishing the mornings and hanging out on the sandbars and islands with my other two buddies boats and their friends.
Even though I tried several more times at the inlet, I never got ahold of any more of those big snook. It was only calm enough for me to get outside the inlet on to the north jetty/beachfront one day. Caught whiting, jacks, and pompano in the surf...
The rest of the week's fishing was inside the Indian River and the Sebastian River, catching reds (all short), trout, mangrove snapper, and of course the sharks and other assorted trash fish.
But my boat is proving to be an excellent fish catching platform with the ipilot/link ulterra and twin 10 ft power poles, it makes it easy to stop and fish and move around and pause as you please. Most interestingly, I noticed a few pompano skipping around the boat one day and came back to the next day to that spot and still saw pompano skipping through the water when I put down my power poles or made a cast overhead. Shortly after power pulling down to fish the area for pompano, I heard a skip, splash, thud,and turned around to see that a pompano (legal 14 1/2") had skipped out of the water, t-boned my center console and was laying in the bottom of the boat! So yes, I can truthfully say that the fish are willing to jump out of the water and into my boat!
Came on back home on day 8 (today), and am getting ready to batter up and fry a large pile of sea trout fillets for tonight.
Grilling skin-on pompanos tomorrow night...
So it was a great pre-surgery blow out for me as I have a pre-op appointment with the surgeon tomorrow and total knee replacement on Tuesday. Looking forward to getting back in that boat and back in a warm Florida will be my motivation for the painful physical therapy!
As always, Looking Forward!
After moving myself into my longtime friends spare bedroom, we headed straight for Sebastian Inlet the next morning. We started off spot locking over the channel edge and dropping mud minnows and shrimp on jigs and fishfinder rigs.Within a span of about 20 minutes we had been freight-trained and broken off on three different rods of mine and one of my buddies. These fish showed absolutely no respect for a tight drag and just went where they wanted no matter what we did. I did get one fish very close to the boat and saw that it was a huge snook! The meat at the back of the tail was bigger around than my forearm and the tail fan was about 8 in wide. It made one last surge towards the bottom as its tail flipped up in the air and popped my line right there. Unfortunately right about then, the outgoing tide went slack and then turned to incoming.we had no more action for another 30 minutes or so, but it was a very exciting start for our fishing. We caught a few trout and snapper during the rest of the day, but wore selves out fishing in that near
blowout day. We were too beat to fish the next day. I spent the next day socializing with other old high schoolers of mine and my buddies little sister and friends... Hadn't seen some of them since the early 80s, the late 80s, or in the case of my host, I last fished with him there in 2004.
The weather was also a welcome break from a North Georgia winter. Each day was 80° to 85° with a southeasterly breeze. It was t-shirts and shorts and flip-flops all week!
We finished out the week fishing the mornings and hanging out on the sandbars and islands with my other two buddies boats and their friends.
Even though I tried several more times at the inlet, I never got ahold of any more of those big snook. It was only calm enough for me to get outside the inlet on to the north jetty/beachfront one day. Caught whiting, jacks, and pompano in the surf...
The rest of the week's fishing was inside the Indian River and the Sebastian River, catching reds (all short), trout, mangrove snapper, and of course the sharks and other assorted trash fish.
But my boat is proving to be an excellent fish catching platform with the ipilot/link ulterra and twin 10 ft power poles, it makes it easy to stop and fish and move around and pause as you please. Most interestingly, I noticed a few pompano skipping around the boat one day and came back to the next day to that spot and still saw pompano skipping through the water when I put down my power poles or made a cast overhead. Shortly after power pulling down to fish the area for pompano, I heard a skip, splash, thud,and turned around to see that a pompano (legal 14 1/2") had skipped out of the water, t-boned my center console and was laying in the bottom of the boat! So yes, I can truthfully say that the fish are willing to jump out of the water and into my boat!
Came on back home on day 8 (today), and am getting ready to batter up and fry a large pile of sea trout fillets for tonight.
Grilling skin-on pompanos tomorrow night...
So it was a great pre-surgery blow out for me as I have a pre-op appointment with the surgeon tomorrow and total knee replacement on Tuesday. Looking forward to getting back in that boat and back in a warm Florida will be my motivation for the painful physical therapy!
As always, Looking Forward!
