This doesn’t mean I will stop my reports, they will just be fewer of them. I was invited to go aboard John’s (BlackCat) new 24ft Key West that he had built this past year. This boat is built like a tank.
We left Johns dock around 6:30am and made the 20 minute trip to the SLI.
We headed to the NE spot and boated a few blue runners before heading to the Sandpile to join the flotilla of boats chasing small schools of Sardines. We ran into Shoeless there joining in on the action.
We managed only a few Sardines here before heading to one of my spots located just north of Evans Crary. We managed a few more Sardines here but they were getting lockjaw around 9am. We decided to call it quits and head east in search of some fishable conditions.
We ended up on the Hill and made a drift with nothing chewing. We continued east and located some weeds in 550ft. With no takers here we continued east and found another weedline in 700ft.
While drifting here I spotted something about 200 yards away splashing on the surface. We hauled in the lines and ran over to this…
This tree was over 20ft long and had a branch that ran down into the water the same distance. We deployed some handful of chunk baits and a couple of sardines and made the first drift. John hooks up to a keeper fin and I hooked up to a shark. John gets his fin to the boat and as I grab the line to toss him into the boat the line broke.
We go back and make another drift and catch two more fins, both short. One 18” and the other 19”. We decided to rig up some ballyhoo and troll around the tree. First up was a screamer then the line gets cut off. We then decided to switch over to lures with wire leaders.
As we are rigging up the lines we seen what was cutting out lines. A pair of 4ft + Wahoo’s swim right up to the boat. We toss in a couple of Sardines be all they did was chase them around. They had lock jaw. Wish I had brought the TB2 with me…
We get back to trolling and quickly got another screamer. Line is smoking off the reel but then it came unglued. After a few more cut-offs and running out of sardines we called it a day.
We dialed in the SLI and we are 17miles out between SLI and the FPL power plant. We arrive back at Johns place around 4:00pm.
Today’s Tally:
4 fins – One John and Jackie’s dinner, two released and one lost by me
3 Caribbean reef Sharks
3 missed Wahoo…
Great time on Johns new ride. Looking forward to the next trip.
How was your day offshore?
Tip of the day:
When you drifting along waiting for the fish to bite, continue to scan the waters around you both near and as far as you can see. Today was a prime example of this paying off. I caught a splash of water off in the distance a couple hundred yards away. What it was were the waves hitting the tree trunk. By always keeping on the look out, your chances of locating that floating debris that can change a day of fishing to a day of catching increases your chances two-fold.
Random pictures:
