I cut out of work early on Friday and after running a quick errand with Shawn and pressure washing my deck, I met up with my brother and we headed out to the Skyway for a couple hours of fishing.
Steve caught a pinfish right off the bat, and I hooked him through the dorsal fin and put him out on the grouper rod. Even with 3oz of weight, it was hard to keep the bait in place. The tide was outgoing and was pushing pretty hard on account of the full moon.
The tide also made it difficult to fish for bait with our lighter poles, but we managed to catch more than we needed and to occupy our time while we waited for the grouper rod to go off.
A guy down the way pulled in two gag grouper in 10 minutes, so we knew they were out there, but after an hour of our live bait swimming around happily, I reeled him and in and cut him up in to 1 inch by 1 inch cubes. The cubes went on our lighter poles, and I cut a nice steak out of the middle and laced it back on the hook to the grouper pole. We sent all the lines back in and waited.
About ten minutes later, my light tackle pole went off, and I pulled up and set the hook hard. My drag started screaming off the reel, and in the excitement of the moment, I actually loosened the drag when I meant to tighten it. By the time I corrected this rookie mistake, the line had gone limp.
I reeled it in to find that the 30lb test monofilament leader had been cleanly bitten off. Might have been a shark or a mackerel, but either way, I'll never know.
I caught a consolation mangrove snapper a while later, but he was undersized.
It's tough to miss out on the big fish I waited all day for, but hey, it was a great day of fishing with my little brother. Beats the crap out of sitting in the office!
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Sunday, May 3, 2009
My way or the Skyway
Headed out to the Skyway North fishing pier on Friday night with my brother and a few of his friends.
The tide was incoming for the first hour or so, then went briefly slack before becoming a strong outgoing tide. It was gorgeous out, with a quarter moon.
Our set up consisted of four heavy poles with 2oz weights and 3/0 hooks placed in PVC rod holders and lashed to the pier railing. My dad had made these after seeing a similar set up used by another pier fisherman. Each one of us also held a light rod and reel combo, which brought our total lines in the water to eight.
Our bait was frozen and live shrimp on the light rods, and cut bait on the big rods.
It didn't take us long to start pulling in some nice sized grunts on our light rods. I put a smallish one on one of the big rods, hooked through the back. The next one I cut up into small chunks and put on the three other big rods.
We must have caught over two dozen grunts of various sizes that night, as well as a couple of pinfish. It wasn't the grouper or snapper that we were hoping for, but those little grunts put up a great fight. We did have two significant breakoffs and a big hit on one of the big poles, but without a hookup.
In addition to all the grunts, I also caught a silver trout and a 20" ladyfish that was the largest fish of the night and put up a pretty good fight. My brother also picked up a sculpin on one of the big rods.
There was a lot of baitfish in the water and a few crabs drifted by as well. A cast net might have netted us some better bait, and I'll have to consider bringing one out the next time we hit the pier. I saw a big kingfish working the bait at one point, and just wished that one of our big rods would go off, but it wasn't to be.
We got there at 8:00pm and left at 2:00am, and we might have stayed out all night if responsibilities hadn't sent us packing. Good fishing and good catching--the only thing I forgot was a cigar!
The tide was incoming for the first hour or so, then went briefly slack before becoming a strong outgoing tide. It was gorgeous out, with a quarter moon.
Our set up consisted of four heavy poles with 2oz weights and 3/0 hooks placed in PVC rod holders and lashed to the pier railing. My dad had made these after seeing a similar set up used by another pier fisherman. Each one of us also held a light rod and reel combo, which brought our total lines in the water to eight.
Our bait was frozen and live shrimp on the light rods, and cut bait on the big rods.
It didn't take us long to start pulling in some nice sized grunts on our light rods. I put a smallish one on one of the big rods, hooked through the back. The next one I cut up into small chunks and put on the three other big rods.
We must have caught over two dozen grunts of various sizes that night, as well as a couple of pinfish. It wasn't the grouper or snapper that we were hoping for, but those little grunts put up a great fight. We did have two significant breakoffs and a big hit on one of the big poles, but without a hookup.
In addition to all the grunts, I also caught a silver trout and a 20" ladyfish that was the largest fish of the night and put up a pretty good fight. My brother also picked up a sculpin on one of the big rods.
There was a lot of baitfish in the water and a few crabs drifted by as well. A cast net might have netted us some better bait, and I'll have to consider bringing one out the next time we hit the pier. I saw a big kingfish working the bait at one point, and just wished that one of our big rods would go off, but it wasn't to be.
We got there at 8:00pm and left at 2:00am, and we might have stayed out all night if responsibilities hadn't sent us packing. Good fishing and good catching--the only thing I forgot was a cigar!
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