81.7 lb COBIA - Caught by a local boat.


http://forums.floridasportsman.com/forum/east-central-fishing-reports/817-lb-cobia-pc

Jetty Park Beach

http://www.cocoabeachsurf.com/BeachCam1.htm


I'm watching surf fishermen on the beach this morning. The kids and I were out there on Thursday. We didn't catch anything but a lot of sand in our car. LOL. Some old farts (ha ha) parked their 4 poles right next to me. Good grief people!!! There are miles of beach. Go somewhere else besides 20 ft to my right!! And to spit in my face, they were catching fish too. Little whiting and a sailcat because they were fishing much further out than I was. Jack was able to watch us from work while we fished.

I plan on fishing again next week. We're on SPRING BREAK!

(Sorry I forgot to take the camera for any beach pictures.)

HISTORY
by Robin

I forgot to share this with many of my family, but a month ago, we received a precious piece of Jack's history. We now have our first picture of Jack's paternal grandfather. His name was Arthur and he grew up in the Keys. His boat was in a boat slip next to the man on the right. The other man's grand-daughter sent our extended family the picture.

You see, fishing is in both Jack and my histories. I grew up fishing on the Great Lakes (region) with my Dad and Jack's grandfather was quite the fishermen too down in Tropic waters.

Below, you see him (left) with a Sawfish, but we heard rumored that he held a billfish record for a while. I would absolutely love to find confirmation of that.



Thanks for indulging me with a trip down Memory Lane.

LACK OF FISHING
by Robin

I feel like I've been really neglectful of filling this blog with great fishing pictures. This has been such a crazy winter for fishermen. Today would be a great day to fish,.... but some people have jobs. Ok, one of us has a job and the only one is sitting here studying surface temps, wind waves and predicting fishing forecasts.

I've seen 1 offshore report in weeks and the guy says the water temps are still very cold for cobia. The only cobes spotted were in the Gulf Stream with is 35 miles away. That's far. They're suppose to be on the beach.

So that leads me to ponder a couple things. Are they going to continue migrating north but far offshore or are they still south of us in large numbers? Are they migrating while staying on the bottom of the ocean and going to skip the entire season of sunbathing in March? Only God knows. There have been times in recent years where the kids were in the pool in mid-March for a quick dip on the warmer days. Today is the 24th and I saw my breath in the morning air. I'm wearing jeans & sweatshirts still. The water in my pool is still in the 50 deg mark. Will we actually ever move into Spring in Florida?

I nearly had Jack convinced of taking the boat out on Monday to just motor around the inlet and by the time we had our sandwiches packed, it clouded up and threatened to rain on us.

So, instead, we had Snapper for lunch. (Grilled squash on the left)


I do hope that we may be able to fish next weekend. Saturday is good but Jack is working. Will the weather hold until Monday? We will see.

Happy Fishing!!

Harry S. Truman - Grouper Fishing

I love the nice red grouper on the line but the military helmet/hat makes me laugh. Ok, so does the informality of him, our President, photographed shirtless. They don't take pictures like that any more.

On the homefront, winds have been high all week, but if we still have a west wind and lower winds, we may still try to get out & down the beach to see if we can spot any cobia. It's been pitiful that there are no fishing reports posted in our area and men are chomping at the bit to go fishing. It's been at least a good 6 wks of wind & waves.

Happy Fishing!

SNOOKERED
by Robin

I totally lost my mind!! I have fish pictures to share. About 2-3 wks ago, Jack and I went down to the docks to see what the fishermen were bringing in. We didn't see much action from the head boats but we did happen to see probably 20 snook hanging out below a pier.




Snook are being protected right now since so many of them died during our deep freezes in January.




Fish always know when you can't touch them. They seem to be laughing right at you and saying, "Na na na na boo- boo."




Happy Fishing (but don't keep a snook!)

PORT CANAVERAL - WINDY & Sea Temps 68 deg!!
by Robin

We've had nothing but 3- 10 ft seas for weeks. I'd sure love a break in the weather in order to get out there and look for cobia this year.

Meanwhile, Jack has been keeping himself busy out in the garage with little boat projects to pass the time.

Meet our boat's alternator....



Here are our guys taking it apart. Jack likes to teach our son how things work mechanically. I hope he can change my oil one day when I'm very old & gray.



Anyhow, here is our eldest demonstrating what they were looking for. Brushes. It doesn't look very brush like at all. But, it is. Jack was very happy with how much "life" it had left and put the alternator back together. (Aww, I just noticed my big gas-guzzling suburban is in the background. Love that truck.)



The next weekend, he worked on painting touch-ups on the hull. He also took off the front bunk that has been falling apart. Yes, on a 1- yr old trailer. It's our bad. I guess we put too much pressure on it with loading the boat back onto the trailer. I'm still getting used to where we want to sink the trailer for loading & unloading.



I'm really hoping that I'm going to have some big fish pictures on here very soon. I'm very ready to fish. I've even been working weights & exercising more to build up my stamina.

Happy Fishing!

http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/saltwater/news/story?id=4975762

Culled out
Public input period for federal fishery strategy has ended

This is a column from Robert Montgomery for ESPN Outdoors. As a Senior Writer for BASS Publications, Montgomery has written about conservation, environment, and access issues for more than two decades. It's part of a series of articles from Montgomery on the issue.


The Obama administration will accept no more public input for a federal strategy that could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing some of the nation's oceans, coastal areas, Great Lakes, and even inland waters.

AP/Luis M. AlvarezOne sign at the United We Fish rally at the Capital summed up the feelings of recreational and commercial fishermen. This announcement comes at the time when the situation supposedly still is "fluid" and the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force still hasn't issued its final report on zoning uses of these waters.
That's a disappointment, but not really a surprise for fishing industry insiders who have negotiated for months with officials at the Council on Environmental Quality and bureaucrats on the task force. These angling advocates have come to suspect that public input into the process was a charade from the beginning.

"When the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) completed their successful campaign to convince the Ontario government to end one of the best scientifically managed big game hunts in North America (spring bear), the results of their agenda had severe economic impacts on small family businesses and the tourism economy of communities across northern and central Ontario," said Phil Morlock, director of environmental affairs for Shimano.

"Now we see NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and the administration planning the future of recreational fishing access in America based on a similar agenda of these same groups and other Big Green anti-use organizations, through an Executive Order by the President. The current U.S. direction with fishing is a direct parallel to what happened in Canada with hunting: The negative economic impacts on hard working American families and small businesses are being ignored.

"In spite of what we hear daily in the press about the President's concern for jobs and the economy and contrary to what he stated in the June order creating this process, we have seen no evidence from NOAA or the task force that recreational fishing and related jobs are receiving any priority."

Consequently, unless anglers speak up and convince their Congressional representatives to stop this bureaucratic freight train, it appears that the task force will issue a final report for "marine spatial planning" by late March, with President Barack Obama then issuing an Executive Order to implement its recommendations — whatever they may be.
Led by NOAA's Jane Lubchenco, the task force has shown no overt dislike of recreational angling, but its indifference to the economic, social and biological value of the sport has been deafening.

Additionally, Lubchenco and others in the administration have close ties to environmental groups who would like nothing better than to ban recreational angling. And evidence suggests that these organizations have been the engine behind the task force since before Obama issued a memo creating it last June.

As ESPN previously reported, WWF, Greenpeace, Defenders of Wildlife, Pew Environment Group and others produced a document entitled "Transition Green" shortly after Obama was elected in 2008. What has happened since suggests that the task force has been in lockstep with that position paper.

Then in late summer, just after he created the task force, these groups produced "Recommendations for the Adoption and Implementation of an Oceans, Coasts, and Great Lakes National Policy." This document makes repeated references to "overfishing," but doesn't once reference recreational angling, its importance, and its benefits, both to participants and the resource.

Additionally, some of these same organizations have revealed their anti-fishing bias by playing fast and loose with "facts," in attempts to ban tackle containing lead in the United States and Canada.

That same tunnel vision, in which recreational angling and commercial fishing are indiscriminately lumped together as harmful to the resource, has persisted with the task force, despite protests by the angling industry.

As more evidence of collusion, the green groups began clamoring for an Executive Order to implement the task force's recommendations even before the public comment period ended in February. Fishing advocates had no idea that this was coming.

Perhaps not so coincidentally, the New York Times reported on Feb. 12 that "President Obama and his team are preparing an array of actions using his executive power to advance energy, environmental, fiscal and other domestic policy priorities."

Morlock fears that "what we're seeing coming at us is an attempted dismantling of the science-based fish and wildlife model that has served us so well. There's no basis in science for the agendas of these groups who are trying to push the public out of being able to fish and recreate.
"Conflicts (user) are overstated and problems are manufactured. It's all just an excuse to put us off the water."

In the wake of the task force's framework document, the Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation (CSF) and its partners in the U.S. Recreational Fishing & Boating Coalition against voiced their concerns to the administration.

"Some of the potential policy implications of this interim framework have the potential to be a real threat to recreational anglers who not only contribute billions of dollars to the economy and millions of dollars in tax revenues to support fisheries conservation, but who are also the backbone of the American fish and wildlife conservation ethic," said CSF President Jeff Crane.
Morlock, a member of the CSF board, added, "There are over one million jobs in America supported coast to coast by recreational fishing. The task force has not included any accountability requirements in their reports for evaluating or mitigating how the new policies they are drafting will impact the fishing industry or related economies.

"Given that the scope of this process appears to include a new set of policies for all coastal and inland waters of the United States, the omission of economic considerations is inexcusable."
This is not the only access issue threatening the public's right to fish, but it definitely is the most serious, according to Chris Horton, national conservation director for BASS.
"With what's being created, the same principles could apply inland as apply to the oceans," he said. "Under the guise of 'marine spatial planning' entire watersheds could be shut down, even 2,000 miles up a river drainage from the ocean.

"Every angler needs to be aware because if it's not happening in your backyard today or tomorrow, it will be eventually.
"We have one of the largest voting blocks in the country and we need to use it. We must not sit idly by."

This is an opinion column from Robert Montgomery. As a Senior Writer for BASS Publications, Montgomery has written about conservation, environment, and access issues for more than two decades.

The waves have been upward to 8 ft this week and will continue to be 3-4 ft into the weekend. I have found myself singing and this song stood out to me, as I learn to be patient with the weather. - Robin


Be Still, My Soul
Katharina von Schlegel, 1752


Be still, my soul: the Lord is on your side. Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain; leave to your God to order and provide; in every change God faithful will remain. Be still, my soul: your best, your heavenly friend through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

Be still, my soul: your God will undertake to guide the future, as in ages past. Your hope, your confidence let nothing shake; all now mysterious shall be bright at last. Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know the Christ who ruled them while he dwelt below.

Be still, my soul: the hour is hastening on when we shall be forever with the Lord, when disappointment, grief, and fear are gone, sorrow for forgot, love's purest joys restored. Be still, my soul: when change and tears are past, all safe and blessed we shall meet at last.

Just Shy a Year Ago.......




We came across this huge pod of dolphins (fills the entire photo). They enjoyed visiting with us & riding the bow of the boat.

It was also our first trip offshore with my newer camera.

This year, the weather is so much colder that I'm afraid many migrating species are most likely going to be delayed. The offshore waters are so much colder this year.

DAWN BRANCHEAU

1970 - 2010

Our thoughts & prayers go out to her family in this most tragic incident.

We Fish Rally
from Washington, DC

2/24/10



http://www.deep-blue-sea.org/dc.asx .
(It's long, but very encouraging.)

2.20.10 - Skunking
by Robin


But we weren't the only ones. LOL. It always feels better when you're not the only one.

Of course, we were only half-trying and half-making a trial run on a boat. There wasn't a chance we were going offshore without checking the engine work inshore first. It sounds like a lot of other fishermen were saying the same thing. "Trial run to get the cob webs out."



We traveled about 20 miles south of Port Canaveral down past Patrick AFB. Glassy seas. Lots of clouds though, which made it very hard to see through the water.



Still, it was a gorgeous day to be on the water, except for the cold air. These pictures make it seem warm, but it was still a bit cold Saturday.

Water temps were 58 deg on the beach. 61 a few miles offshore. Friends said they never saw 70 deg even far, far offshore. We only heard 1 report of a guy catching cobia off the surface, south of us. Mostly, people were either skunked, bottom fished & had to release their snapper/groupers or stayed around the jetties for sheepshead & blk drum.



We couldn't buy us a nibble of anything with live shrimp. You know the fish are cold if you can even get a nibble.

The wind wave picked up by 2:30pm so we traveled back up the beach to home. We had a great time chatting with our friends that were gathering signatures to fight fishing closures. So many people were willing to sign the petition. We've even got a Congressman on our side. Plus, "they" shut down NY fisheries, which has caused our Northern friends to also join in the fight.

I'm telling ya, this is not a small battle. Fishermen (commercial & recreational) are in a fight for their lives against these liberal, anti-meat/ save the world nuts. What's wrong with this world were you can't go out and catch a little dinner from time to time?

By the way, tomorrow is the Fishermen's Protest on Capitol Hill. A couple local guys are speaking with our Representative to get her on board. The news is beginning to pick up the story as well.

Happy Fishing & God bless America!

IT's a GO!!!!!!!!!!!!
by Robin


We pick up the boat at 9:30 am and then head to the port to test her new work. As long as we're at it, we'll join the team of boats heading out looking for cobia. Mostly, I'm thinking the water surface is too cold, but it never hurts to give a look. The weather is great. 1 ft seas at 14 sec (period). If nothing else, we'll have a beautiful picnic on the boat. I'm hoping the temps will read mid-70's too.

We're so desperate for being on the water anyhow. Pelagic (surface) fishing season is music to my ears since all the bottom fish closures this winter.

MAINTAINANCE TIME!
by Robin


(very old picture w/ old suburban & old trailer)

Our 248 Mako has been taken over to a marine shop to be given some lovin' this week. Normally we do all our own maintainance, but Jack has been busier than normal. He's looking at possibly working some of this weekend and then he has to leave out for Dallas for training. By the time March gets here, the cobia may start their run and we want "First Choice" to be ready to run too.

Dana, owner of Mullis Marine, was shocked that this was the same boat that he last saw back when we bought it. Gee, he saw it before we even put the Opti-Max engine on it, which seems like years ago. It's so nice to see people really appreciate the hard work we put into restoring her. We know that he'll take good care of her.

Happy Fishing!! Warm weather is right around the corner.

What in the world do you think he is saying to the pelican next to him?



"Got fish?"
"Did you see the beak on that girl?"
"I heard they closed Snapper fishing and now, we don't get any free food any more."
"Get a load of that tourist walking by."
"Don't look now, but she's taking a picture of us."
"Crazy papparazzis"

Your turn........

PITIFUL FISHING DAY (glad we didn't waste the gas)
by Robin


Jack and I went down to the port for our Sun evening date where we listen to some live music and grab a nice appetizer or two for Valentine's Day.

I brought the camera in order to take pictures of fish coming in off the boats, but I had no such luck. Most boats didn't even go out. Then, we saw the Orlando Princess (?) heading for her dock. We walked the road until we met up with those getting off the boat. Most were sooo disappointed. Only a couple people waited for fish.

One man asked another how they did.

He replied, "Only little stuff. Nothing big at all."

So, my subjects for he day are pelicans and one mockingbird.



Even the birds are bored because no one is cleaning fish.


We debated for a while if this guy was missing a leg or just holding up a good one.


Sure enough, he had 2 legs, but I sure couldn't find the other until we forced the issue and made him hop away.

CLASSIC SEA STORY - Message in a Bottle
by Robin

Oh my goodness! I'd be remiss if I didn't introduce you to Jerry.



Ok, not them. Those people are my family. I'm talking about the bottle. That day we caught all the drum, sheepshead, red fish, we also found a bottle in the ocean while searching for tripletail. We even took this memorable photo of it. It even came with the classic treasure map in there.

Once we were home and done cleaning fish, curiousity got the best of Jack. I was in the kitchen when Jack came to me with a hand full of what looked like sand. Jack didn't look so hot, like he'd seen a ghost. He asked me if it looked like sand or something else in his hand. I closely examined it and then admitted that it didn't look like sand.

"What is it?" I asked. That's when he handed me the treasure map, errr.... uh... note. It was a farewell message from the friends of Jerry who had drunk this bottle of rum on a casino boat, put the remains of their drinking buddy, Jerry, into the bottle and then sent him over the rail to sail the ocean seas and see the world. Much to Jerry's demise, part of him was in the grass and the other half still in the bottle back on dry land.

The only problem with their send-off was that they threw the floating casket out with an west wind, taking the bottle right back to shore.

To our surprise, on the note was a cell phone number. We called it and got the story about how Jerry was a drifter, dying of cancer. No family and no real friends to speak of. After he died a poor man, Jerry's drinking friends did what they thought was appropriate as a funeral. BUT, they did not love Jerry enough to do it again. So, we were stuck with Jerry.

Jack scooped up as much of Jerry's remains in the grass and we transferred everything to an old lemonade plastic container. Jerry sat on my dryer for a couple weeks while another storm passed by and the seas were high. It was really hard to do laundry that month. Creepy really. So creepy, I couldn't take it after a while and I had Jack move Jerry to the covered sidewalk outside the house. Sorry JERRY!

Eventually, we were able to take the boat to an undisclosed distance offshore, add some lead to the recyclable, non-breakable casket and turned off the engine. For an untrained funeral pastor, Jack did a really nice job speaking at the funeral while the three of us stood silently. It was hard, but we sent Jerry back to the sea, only not floating. He is still resting in the Cape region (I hope).
We came back home feeling weird. So sad for Jerry to be so alone in this world. Yet, we felt called by God to at least give Jerry a decent 'burial at sea'. I hope that God never has us serve Him this way again.

A couple years later, we found another floating bottle in the sea with coquinas all over it. There were no remains in the bottom of the bottle. We did read that note and let the owners know we had found their message in a bottle. The bottle had actually traveled all the way from the Yucatan peninsula, set adrift by some English folks. We never did hear back from them.

OFFSHORE VINTAGE
by Robin

Here is my then-8, now 13 yr old with his first Red Snapper ever in his life. This one had to be released to grow up, but he has since caught a few keepers.




Sometimes while fishing for snappers, we end up with sharks. Our first shark in Central FL was a Scalloped Hammerhead, whose pictures were lost in a hard-drive crash years ago. We've caught a couple Nurse sharks as well. This one is a smaller spinner shark which was released inspite of the bloody lip I gave him for eating my hook.



It make Jack so nervous that I like to try to hold the smaller sharks. Many varieties of fish have given me teachable moments with our children. I like for them to get to feel the sandpaper skin, look at the Ampules of Lorenzini on the nose and notice body shape. Remoras are always fun to show visitors as they will stick right to the side of the boat we removing the hook. I have countless reef fish I've photographed so we could ID later at home. We have a favorite shark nursery reef to take cousins so they can catch their own baby shark. They love that.

Oh gee, here's a good one. They day we taught our son to stick his fingers in the eye of a flounder. Yep, those are some good times. (LOL) He wasn't buying it though.

MORE VINTAGE
by Robin


As long as I'm going back to 2004, I thought I'd grab more for the rest of the week.



This was Jack with his 15.5 lb Tripletail. As you can see, the water was like glass. Heat was unbearable - but we love that sort of thing. We were motoring around looking for tripletail when we came across a branch in the water. This guy was hanging out underneath it.

One live shrimp, a deadly cast past the fish, then dragging the shrimp into view and....... s/he was ours!!

Nothing beats the meat of a tripletail. They are still one of my most favorite fish to scout for. You really have to be stealthy in a several thousand pound boat w/ engine running. Jack is a much more accurate caster than I, so he throws and I'm his eyes while standing on the cuddy. We have to whisper. Kids are still & silent. You'd think we were hunting an eight-point buck who was walking by us.

Teamwork really paid off that day.

It also paid off this other day. Jack's tripletail is on the left. Mine is on the right. LOL. Seriously, Jack was very gracious to cast for me, make the hook-up and then let me bring in my 14 lber.


(Gee, I wish I'd put on some make-up once in a while.)

Oh what I'd do for a tripletail day on the water.

Happy Fishing!