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!