On this trip, secondarily to the time spent with my children were the piscatorial goals I hoped to accomplish with Casey (8) and Kaitlyn (6): for each I hoped to guide them to a grouper, kingfish, Spanish, redfish, & a trout, not to mention work our blue crab & stone crab traps. In summary the weather & winds impacted our on-the-water time but even though it was windy it made for great land days for riding bikes, kayaking, hitting the beach, and swimming. One good thing about the windy weather is that it knocks down the flying teeth (No See Ums) so you could hang outside in comfort. Here’s a brief narrative and pictorial summary of our week in Cedar Key.
Monday: Since the weekend was a wash for boating on account of the cold front we waited until Monday to leave for Cedar Key. Even as we arrived it was obvious to see that Monday was not to be a fishing day for us.
Tuesday: Despite the residual waves from the windy weekend and Monday we headed offshore to Seahorse Reef to play with the macks for a bit before the forecasted rain (60%) and seas picked up. Our visit was short as it was a bit choppy with overcast skies. After the 2nd Spanish was landed Kaitlyn backed away from the flopping & chomping mack and backed into Pat resulting in both of them to falling backwards over the splashwell gate, landing between the outboards and on top of the steering linkage (Kait’s on top of Pat). After managing to get up Pat went to the bow and laid down while we continued to fish. Twenty minutes later (3 more macks, a bluefish, and a ladyfish for the kids) & no movement at the bow a light rain begin so we decided to call it a day and head back home. It was uncomfortable for Pat to move so she stayed lying down in the bow with a suspected broken rib. Pat had to work early the next day so she left Tuesday evening so she could get an early start and not have to worry about hitting any animals in the dark returning home. If needed she’d get an X-ray to see the extent of her injury.
Looking for macks
Wednesday: Around mid morning the kids & I loaded up the boat with ice & bait with aspirations of playing with grouper and hopefully a king or two. The first priority was to set our blue crab and stone crab traps out. After deploying the blue crab traps inshore we headed offshore to an area I had in mind but I had to reconsider since there were stoner traps already over the area. We moved off a bit and started dropping the traps. We baited each trap with a grouper carcass and dropped them down. Casey enjoyed this as he imagined himself as an Alaskan King Crab Fisherman as he threw out the crab pot lines and float like they do in the Discovery channel show, Deadliest Catch. Pretty funny I thought.
With the traps deployed I dropped a rig with small double hooks and caught a few blue runners which would become our flat line baits. With that we headed out to the kids grouper spot (35-38 ft). There the visibility was poor and the tide had just started. Dropping down frozen herring the gags didn’t seem to mind. Kait’s was first to get a grouper for the fishbox.
Kaitlyn with the first keeper of the day & Casey with a short.
After they both caught a couple more shorts Casey was next with a good fish and Kait’s was on net duty.
Net duty.
Casey with his first fish of the day headed for the fishbox.
After a few more shorts we moved to another hardbottom spot we could see in the distance (never been there before) but it didn’t pan out. The seabass were there in numbers but we did however manage 6 hand sized squirrel fish so we headed back to a nearby spot and pinned on the grouper candy. The kids lost a couple of fish due to rock ups and cut leaders but the squirrel fish were eagerly greeted with a solid thump and the rod tip getting pulled down into the water. The kids had a grand time. On the flatline we had two hits but it’s amazing how good the kingfish are at biting where the stinger hook is not. Kaitlyn then caught another nice gag that went into the fishbox.
My rod, which was unattended in a rod holder (circle hook), went off next and Kaitlyn got to handle that fish.
With that Casey took his gag out of the fishbox and we ended the day with a photo of their best fish.
Scallywags
As we were taking pictures my rod went off again only this time it was obvious that it was a stout fish as the line started going towards the horizon with a deep bend. Thinking it was either a shark, cobia, or a large grouper I took the rod out of the rod holder and got the fish off the bottom. As the fish swam over to the other side of the boat I put the rod back in the other rod holder for Kaitlyn to winch up. She was having trouble making any headway and within 10 seconds the rod bent down with the tip almost touching the water and the line parted. That would have been nice to see what that was. That was a pretty impressive fish!
On the way in we pulled our blue crab traps but we only caught six with the two traps. We rebaited them and sent them back down. After the kids went to bed I got to work eating the blue crabs. Man I love crabs.
Crab Crew
Thursday: The wifer returned to Cedar Key Wednesday evening but she wasn’t quite up for anything as she was still hurting. So mother & daughter spent time together while Casey & I castnetted mud minnows and fished Corrigan’s Reef on an outgoing tide for a couple of hours looking for trout. We only caught a catfish and a Spanish mack but the mullet were all over the place and the dolphins put on quite a show working the shallow water mullet. We then worked near one of the islands and Casey caught a nice 25â€
