by Robin
(Jack with a fish that decided to "rock up" and would not budge.)
As I mentioned a couple posts ago, our fish finder had died just as we were pulling in a keeper snapper and we made a few unsuccessful passes over similar ground but probably not great bottom. Here is a little sand perch that was caught & released. I love his colors.
So, our stomachs made the decision to eat a little lunch while cruising a short distance over to deeper water and set out the trolling rods.
Trolling....... now there's something I love to do on a hot day, lots of sun on the back and having my favorite view of a flat ocean. I love standing on my cuddy cabin and looking down into the ocean. Sometimes I look back and see my guys having Father/Son bonding. This time, I also had little man who was passed out (avoidance of nausea) at my feet.
I do think he would feel better if he fished more and quit laying down while on the sea. Unfortunately, as hard as we tried, we only saw 1 small peanut dolphin who didn't bite at our ballyhoo being dragged behind the boat.
We had found a nice rip current that was carrying some scattered weeds (above white line in pic above) & debris. We went up & down both sides of it and didn't see much life. Even little tiny bait fish seem to be missing in the whole equation. About the only thing we saw consistently were the Man-O-War jellyfish. (see arrow)
So, we eventually pulled off of that and headed back west toward our former fishing area: Snap 85 and Gilson 89 (our nicknames for them). About the time we turned west for bottom fishing again, Jack spots a nice sunfish on top of the water. Wouldn't you know it, as soon as I get my camera out, it takes a dive down. No picture... sorry. It had a nice little remora stuck to its side. I did manage to put Jack on a couple floating pieces of wood but they weren't holding any fish under them.
A few seconds later, our fish finder pops back on. It's still acting up (flashing), but at least it is reading bottom and the loud alarm stopped working. So, a few miles later, Jack puts us back over our two spots. This is not the best picture of the drifts we made but it gives you an idea of the bottom.
You can see the bottom is filled up with fish.
One of the spots has twice produced grouper but for us........ nothing but black sea bass this trip out. I love these fish but what we brought up was too small to want to filet. Our eldest son brought up a small trigger too. It just wasn't our day to fill the cooler but it had been an interesting none-the-less. Lots of released fish. We only had 1 shark the entire day. It managed to tangle Jack and my lines up.
We opted to come home an hour or so earlier than planned and get all our chores done and enjoy the night together.
Today, Jack put in a new hatch in the cockpit floor to make easy access to the back of the fuel tank. I have pictures but will upload them later. We had a small leak one day when the fuel tank was nearly on full. We could smell fumes and so Jack wanted to take care of that. Secondly, we spoke with Lowrance (fish finders) and they no longer fix our model 107C, so they made the offer to send us a new one, same model, for a highly discounted price. I'm guessing this is surplus they didn't sell before they started marketing something else. Anyhow, we took the discount and will wait patiently for our new fish finder. We were looking at a couple weeks of down time anyhow because Jack has some upcoming dental work on his days off. Oh joy!! I say rejoice, always, rejoice....... ("yeah, right" says Jack).
It won't be long and we'll be into some great spring fishing.
Happy Fishing,
Robin
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