6/29/10 - SURF FISHING at PLAYALINDA Beach
by Robin

I forced the boys out of bed at 7 am and out the door by 7:30. We took my grandfather's surf pole with us, along with various beach toys.

We arrived at the beach only to find very heavy haze, practically fog. Eeerie but absolutely cool. It was coming up on high tide with supposed 1-2 ft waves (more like a solid 2 ft+) and 87 deg temps, which felt more like 70 degs. The thermocline is hitting offshore and I believe it was showing itself on the Canaveral Nat'l Seashore this morning.



We made our way through the turtle nesting areas to a place where the boys could run around. Our church's playgroup was going to be joining us at 10:30am.



Here was my view, looking northbound.


I fished for hours with nary a bite. I used clams, fake crab, frozen & live sandfleas, frozen shrimp,... you name it. I got NOTHING.

But the boys...... they found a nice size crab to catch & observe.




After the friends all started to show up, I put up the pole until after many of them left again. The boys borrowed some boogie boards to ride in the surf.


This is NOT a beach to simply relax and not watch your kids. It is steep at high tide, so we waited until it was almost level at low tide before doing this.



We buried our friends, one by one.





By 3pm, we were one of the last 2 families there. Time to go home & cook dinner & get baths.

Look how the water color & clarity changed by afternoon!!!! Gorgeous day.





The view South at the top of the Barrier Ridge. Those are 2 of the launch pads for the shuttles.


Such an odd thing right in the middle of the Wildlife Refuge & beach.

Blog 2 down....... Hmmm.....

I think I'm going surf fishing on Friday again. Hopefully I'll catch a stinkin' fish this month. LOL

Happy Fishing!

6/14/10 - 8A Reef & HETZEL SHOALS
by Robin

Inspite the fact that nobody reads this and I'm totally uninspired by that, I'm still going to blog up our last 2 trips with poles in hand.

On June 14th, we headed offshore rather early, but not dawn. We brought the umbrella which only resulted in one poked face.



Caught bait on the 3rd buoy that we came upon. All buoys were holding barracuda which is normal for summer. You'd better get your bait in the boat fast before they come to eat it.





While running out to 8A, we ran past a bait pod that seemed a good acre in size. Hindsight was that we probably should have trolled the edges to see what was boiling them up to the surface. Probably would have caught some kingfish there, but didn't stick with it.

Found some nice rips & scattered weeds on 8A. Saw a couple small mahi mahi that didn't bite.



Spent a couple hours with only 1 knockdown, resulting in ZERO fish.

Motored to a new spot, called Hetzel Shoals. Supposedly it was holding cobia fish there. And it is STILL holding fat cobia there, but we didn't stick it out since it was new grounds. I know this looks like a picture of blue nothing, but we really could see slight formations on the bottom. According to other fishermen, you can see forms of large fish swimming around. That's when you drop the hook w/ bait down. Next time we go out, we'll probably head back and try it again. Dozens of fish are coming off of this area. One had a tag on it from Louisiana.



We went back to 8A and after some unsuccessful trolling, tried bottom fishing. We've never done that there before. A few black sea bass and a nice dolphin show was all we got.



The kids were so happy to hear we were headed back home by 2:30pm. Too much heat. No fish action. VBS that night. Sometimes you just need to cut your losses.



One down, one to go....

DEPRESSED
by Robin

Last week, the vote went through to close fishing in a specially boxed off area (98 ft - 240 ft water depth, from Port Canaveral to Savannah). No boat is allowed to verticle fish (bottom fishing) in thousands of square feet of ocean. Trolling is allowed. You can't even travel through the "boxed" area unless your bottom fishing poles are stowed away. Supposedly, the coast guard is watching you on radar and your boat will then be inspected upon entering the port to make sure you didn't catch any fish off the bottom. THIS IS RIDICULOUS!! The Carolinas were included in this box as well, but their representatives fought the SAFMC recommendations with a promise to not enforce any of their regulations and so their area was removed. Florida representatives sold us out.... for what??

This is not a hoax y'all. This is the passage of Amendments 17A & 17B from the South Atlantic Fisheries Mgmt Council.

People from my coast are now heading over to the Gulf of Mexico to catch what they can before the oil hits over there. Scallop season was opened 2 wks early so people could harvest before the oil hits beds. Eventually, there will be little to no fishing on the West Coast. Friends going to the Keys for Mini-Lobster season in early August have said the rooms are not booked and they're offering 50% discounts for divers that will book & come down.

Florida's fishing & diving economy is officially sunk.

What is the fate of this blog?? Our family's favorite hobby?? Florida lifestyle on a boat??

I'm not trying to be mean but since nobody has read my blog in weeks, I can let my hair down and speak my mind. If liberals take over this world, we'd be sitting in the middle of knee-high grass (no gas for your car or lawnmowers), with tons of mosquitos surrounding us, stinky because we shouldn't use bug sprays nor certain bars of soap, unable to afford power & AC for our homes because the prices would necessarily skyrocket, unable to fish because the ocean is closed off to us, unable to hunt because they're taken away our guns and unable to go to our beaches since they're covered in oil. I'll be sickly because my doctors will have quit their practices, meds will be unaffordable because I'm taxed up to my eyeballs & my insurance company will have dissolved and Jack may not have a job because all of those evil-capitalists will be run out of their businesses.

Where in the world have all our freedoms gone? Where in the world is the America I grew up with??? Sheesh people, I just want to be able to fish. Don't mess with my fishing. It does weird things to me.

Hey all!!

I really have fished recently. I just haven't posted up anything yet. Pictures coming soon!!

Tourney Results
by Robin

Tourny 1
Dolphin1. Rigatoni, 29.5, Matt Ring2. Dirty Hooker, 27.4, Jason Shimpnaugh3. Sea Hopper, 26.75, Harold Cook

Tourny 2
Dolphin1. Watusi, 31.90, Bradley McGuire2. In The Salt, 31.85, Eric Johnson3. Triple 7's, 23.70, Ralph Turner4. Slam Time, 26.50, Jeff Brown



Why do I bother mentioning this??? Top tourny weights of dolphin were 31.9 lbs and 29.5 lbs. Those are very low weights in a fish that can easily top 70 lbs. Jacksonville is having large mahi and south of us are seeing large mahi.

I believe this heavy freeze, late spring run and now intense heat have done something so weird to the migration patterns. Fish that stayed with normal migration times, continued in the Gulf Stream until the inshore waters warmed up enough for them to cross over. That means they bypassed us. Fish that were late in migration stayed south and eventually hung there in the deeper waters off those shores.

Anyhow, that is my guess to such weird tourny results. Btw, no wahoo were caught in either tournament. Also strange.

Happy Fishing,
Robin

SNAPPER/GROUPER DECISION
by Robin

All this week SAFMC is meeting to discuss certain closures on different species each day. Yesterday was the day for Snapper/Grouper talks. Talks went late and today, the news is that the decision was 9-4 vote to close Snapper & Grouper fishing. They were still hammering out exactly where fishing was closed off. They have a box, but the sides of the box keep changing. If you catch the fish outside the box, it is rumored that the Coast Guard (your tax dollars at work) are going to watch you on radar to make sure you don't stop in that boxed area while coming in to port.

This is so crazy. What if you catch snapper outside the box and then find a school of mahi and stop to get one of them?? What if spearfishing is allowed in this area but you still have a rod & reel on your boat? How do they enforce that? Will it end up looking a bit like our open borders? Will they get lax and eventually 12 million red snapper will enter the country illegally?

I have no answers to any of my questions. Infact, the more I try to get informed on the issue, the more questions I have.

Happy Fishing, if they let us.......

5.21.10 - MAHI RUN... feels a bit cursed
by Robin

We fished on Friday as a family. I know Jack was tired and was considering changing out his brakes on the car, but the weather was so nice, I insisted. It's been well over a month since I fished and I couldn't wait to see blue water.

In the car by 6:30 and out of the Port mouth by 7:30. Lots of other fishermen thinking the same thing.


Our first stop was in approx 120 ft of water, 14-18 mi offshore. We came across this mating pair of turtles. Gee........ we went offshore to get away from all that R-rated stuff on tv. I can't tell you how many jokes from the turtle's perspective were told. Ahhh.... the things you say when you're trolling & bored.


We start off trolling east until we find scattered weeds, which indicates where 2 bodies of water meet. "Stuff" collects in this area, which creates home for bait fish, which in turn, makes great hunting grounds for us. We picked up 1 barracuda right away.


We had no sooner cut the barracuda loose and this huge boat comes hurling down on us. It's irritating because we have long trolling lines out and there's a whole ocean for other boaters to go. Unfortunately, somebody ran over Jack's lines last week when he was out with the guys. This day, it ends up being a check from the Fish & Wildlife guys who were, at least, very considerate to not tangle in the lines. They checked our registration, asked questions about life-jackets, emergency equipment and then told us our registration FL & numbers were too close together. No problemo. They didn't board the boat and they were kind enough to let me take a photo of them after they were done. Nice folks doing their state jobs in federal waters. I'm a little confused on that, but I digress............



No long after, these 2 fins come our way.


They only stayed a few seconds and took off. We were disappointed. I think they must not like our trolling lines when they do their echo location. Or maybe we were going too slow.


We saw flying fish all day long.


My big guys are replacing the chewed up ballyhoo from the barracuda and putting on a fresh bait.


Not long afterwards, we get a bite. We let our eldest take the pole. I grabbed the camera.


He jumped multiple times. This size is roughly 5-6 lbs, which is considered a "bailer", short of bail it over the side of the boat by grabbing the line. He was gorgeous. Jack grabbed that line, the fish flipped out and unhooked himself and swam away. I had slight impulses of jumping in the water after him, but I didn't.


Back to trolling again. Somewhere in this photo (unseen to my eyes, but I know it is there because I saw it in real life) is a 6 ft long hammerhead and swam right through our lines.


A 2nd fish takes the bait and ruuuuuuuuuns. Big fish. Big jumps. We give our son a 2nd chance and he's reeling and reeling. This fish is closer to 20 lbs and probably as long as our son is tall. He gets him not far off the back of the boat and his wrist accidentally hits the "free-spool" button, releasing the line & pressure off the fish. Sadly, he swam away too. I thought our son was never going to recover from that heart-ache.


We were all saddened by such an unfortunate accident that anybody could have made. All you can do is continue on. We had another barracuda come & go. The heat of the afternoon drove the fish down and the bite disappeared for a couple hours.

Maybe it was too much for this little guy who sought refuge in the shade, yet enjoying the air flow from trolling. Those early morning hours really get to you after a while.


Eventually he got up in time to see this single spotted dolphin join us for a short ride.


I'm so glad my kids don't freak out at not seeing land. While he may see this as a hobby he will not pursue later in life, I have found much peace in being offshore. We all seem to enjoy seeing the wildlife. I love fishing & eating fish, but it's more than that for me and Jack.


Later after 3pm, a 2 ft fish from the tuna family made a 360 flip with our lure and then disappeared. I saw silver. Jack said he thought it was a blackfin tuna. Oh wouldn't that have been nice to land?

We had a small peanut mahi grab the line but wasn't hooked.

I eventually put down the camera. Helped Jack with preparing to bring in another mahi that he had the pleasure of reeling in. I'm guessing he was about 8 lbs (?). It would have made an awesome photo to see his fin ripping through the water. But, then the 80 lb braid line in Jack's hand literally disintegrated. The fish swam away, lure and all.

Jack looks at me, totally serious, and says, "Did we tithe?" It was rough loosing 3 nice fish that were so close to the boat. I did pray again. Always praying while on the boat....

The reel goes bzzzzzzzz........... I jumped on it. It's my turn finally. I worked carefully, as to not lose this one, playing with the drag here and there. I get it boatside and Jack grabs the gaff. This one is a gaffer-size. We're both determined to not lose this fish. Stab, swing, cooler, slam the lid, sit on the top. That fish kicked and kicked inside there. When she calmed down a good 5 min or so, I pulled her out for this picture. She was the amazing chameleon. Golden stripes on green/yellow before gaffing, to green/yellow. Here, she was losing her green/yellow and changed to a blue/white back in the cooler. It was like my eyes were playing tricks on me.



We tried some more trolling and finally gave up right before 5pm. Lots of fun & exhaustion set in. We had a serious 24 mi ride back in to the port even after trolling several miles west to catch this fish.

We were suppose to fish on our friends' boat the next day but we cancelled. Too much sun and ache in my back. We had a family day picking blueberries and strawberries instead.

Jack is offshore today with his friend Hector (from accounting). Hector is an Uruguay-American. Really nice person. I can't wait to see what they come home with.

Btw, we normally get kingfish while mahi fishing. We were so diappointed that we never picked up one.

Happy Fishing

5/19/10 - MAHI Trip with Jeff & Chuck
by Robin

It's late and this will be short on details, but stating stuff for a matter of record-keeping.

* 7 Mahi
* 1 small Bull
* multiple schools of peanuts found on a weedline in 220 ft.
* Many sky-rocketing mahi everywhere
* Caught the 16-ish lb cow when sinking baits
* Smooth as glass offshore
* Water temp 81 deg, furthest distance 31 mi., east wind (I think)
* No kings or cobia were had. Turtles were mating.
* found glass minnows or empty stomachs on these fish.
* caught approx mid-morning to early afternoon.
* Many caught on the new lure.









We're off fishing tomorrow as a family. Jack rigged 18 ballyhoo tonight. I made about as many sandwiches. Check back again for more pics. I'll have the camera this time.

FISHING VACATION
by Robin

I don't think anybody is still reading this blog, but for the record, Jack has taken the next 2 wks off from work to primarily fish and fill the freezer for a while.

Today was his first day offshore. I'm anxious to see what he comes home with. Pictures to come.

I also think that if the weather holds out, we'll be offshore tomorrow, as a family.

Have a great day.

4/23/10 - Mahi trip offshore with coworkers
by Robin

As customary, there are no beautiful offshore pictures when Jack fishes with the guys. What you get is the driveway shots. LOL

5 mahi, split between 3 guys. 2 other buddy boats out there with their coolers full too.



Our youngest holding up Daddy's catch for the day.




The next morning, I got the honors of cleaning the fish while Jack went back to work. It's a good thing I'm not squeamish. By the way, this is a femal mahi. You can tell this by her more-sloped head (bullet-shaped). She is full of row. That is the orange eggs in the stomach area. Female mahi produce eggs constantly. They're very prolific fish. Each side of a fish this size will feed our entire family a single portion.


Happy Fishing!

I need a fish picture!!! These are from last spring.

Below is a mahi on the end of a line. You can barely see the fish but he's there.



Here was a turtle we woke up from his nap. Look how flat the water was this day. Unbelieveable for the ocean.


Jack and I are looking at a small window of opportunity to fish in the afternoon for cobia right out of the mouth of the port. There are pockets of cold water to the north & south, leaving just one small area at the right temp. Hopefully after church, we can pick up one or two right around the buoy line.

Happy Fishing!

BOTE

by Robin

I kid you not. I was reading the fishing reports on the Florida Sportsman Fishing forums and some guy writes a post saying, "I got in my bote for some fishing....."

Dude, I understand those who are not natural spellers get the short-end of the stick. I live with one, if not two of them. I have a lot of sympathy and patience in this area. I totally understand being illiterate, but I don't think that applies here since he wrote an entire paragraph. But, there are wonderful features like spell-check. Reference a dictionary or at least a fishing magazine. Whatever. But please...... don't expect even the worst of spellers to take you seriously when you spell boat bote on a fishing website. That's just wrong.

(I'm not always this picky or grumpy like I've been the last 2 posts. I blame the ear, throat and eyeball pain. When will this pollen leave us??)

Happy Fishing!
Robin

THE PATCH
by Robin

Oh, how I wish this was about pirate's patches; but, sadly, it is not. Or patching up a hole in one's jeans; but, it's not that either.

It's about the beach. And I'm putting it here because this is my private, safe place. I absolutely hate going to the beach and be able to pick how many girls are on b.c. patches. Are they not even remotely conscious of ......... I'm speechless....... Do they have no..... I can't figure out how to end my sentence.......... This may be a first...... *ever*....... in my life.

Trust me, I was no saint before Jesus changed my life. But, I'm not sure about this. Kinda like tacky advertisement, ya know? Kinda like that flying banner that every single man (married or not) was staring at in the sky. No....... I'm not going there. One problem at a time. ha ha.

Ok, I'm going back to crawl in a hole with all my germs & various medications. I just had to say something since I saw a commercial.

Happy Fishing!! I hope to be out there on Monday.

What the Pipe?
by Robin


On Saturday, we took my youngest to the beach for his art classes (see Raising Fishermen). While we were there, my eldest decided to skimboard for his entertainment. I agreed to watch him & take a couple pics. Anyhow, we walk on the beach and find this huge intrusive piece of metal between us & the beach.



What?? I guess we're suppose to be grateful for the little sand dunes that allow us to walk over the top.

Whomever put it there, I want them to remove it. Right now.



I mean it. I don't like it at all. It's really killing that tropical feeling.

Back on topic, the seas are 3-6 ft high all week. I'm sick. We will not be heading offshore tomorrow to look for cobia. Jack is going to buy a battery for our boat and I'm going to the doctor's office. Maybe next week.......

Happy Fishing!

4/5/10 Cobia & Blues (picture heavy!!)
by Robin

Ran south down the and hit a nice size school. We cast to it to see what was in it.



Jack hooks up with a blue fish. (12-14"?)




So, he let the kids hook up one for themselves as well.




I think this one is barely legal. It doesn't matter since they all swam off and joined their friends.


We continued working down the beach. Saw 2 pairs of tripltail swimming together and cast to them. No takers. I think they were in love and not interested in eating.

Finally, we're down to Patrick AFB (2nd tower) and we hear & see people are catching fish a couple miles off the beach. We go deeper toward bluer water. We see birds working bait pods. We had also seen a small hammerhead. I did see something working the baitballs, thinking it was spinner or blk tip sharks. We've seen this before. We started to move on until we heard it come across the radio that those were cobia. (bird working the bait from on top)


Baitball (or pod)


Lighter version


Cobia moving through the pod, feeding.


We head back to another pod (there were so many all around us) that doesn't have a boat on it. Yep, sure enough, those are cobia. This one pod had at least 5 cobia that passed right in front of our boat.


They would not take a jig since they were already spoiled on live bait. So, we threw some live shrimp to them. Jack is fighting the glare, so I stand on top and give directions from above. He ends up hooking up one of the fish.


We were buddy-boating with a friend, Al. We called him over to share in the action. While we drifted and fought our fish, we left Al to continue casting for his own fish.


My youngest took this picture since I was helping Jack with the landing of the fish.

Not a huge cobia (as far as they top out at), but a nice 24 lber.


Cobia steaks for the family later that night. A bunch of meat frozen back. We'll be offshore again on Monday to see if we can get more.

Happy Fishing!
Robin