Hoping to get my first east coast offshore trip going (I’ve been waiting weeks to do this trip )I called a few people I’ve met since moving here from Gainesville to see if anyone wanted to head offshore but everyone had previous commitments (understandable). I ended up having a fishing buddy (Jay) from Gainesville drive over and spend the day fishing with me.
Since moving here in February this was my first East Coast offshore trip running my boat, a 24’ Boston Whaler Outrage, the Bare Necessities . Left our dock at 0710 hours, an hour later than intended, headed south to the St. Augy inlet. Offshore we stopped at Leon Roddy (LR) to see if there was any bait but didn’t find any. Further out we also stopped on a small bait pod but they sounded before we got there and couldn’t find them again. With that we pointed the bow to the east on a 98° heading. At 145 feet we found a nice weedline but after 10 minutes trolling 3 lines it occurred to me that there was not a temperature change. So we struck lines and continued east. At 230 feet things looked fishy with a 2° F temperature change from 74.4 to 76.4° F, spotty weed, and flying fish. We set out lines and within 5 minutes had a double hookup with a cow & bull coming aboard. I usually take a lot of photos but with only two of us we were busy.
We had most of our strikes around the ledge and I saved a number of ledge spots for future bottom trips. That 30 foot ledge (180 to 210 foot) looks like a great place for bottom fishing. Trolling, the most energetic hit came from a cow smacking the Bonito plug running in the prop wash.
Jay with a nice phin
Bare Necessities
Two of the three hits on plastics with small ballyhoo were on blue & white. Later in the morning we trolled west to 145 ft and only had one hit, which was the smallest cow. At 1230 hours we were 5 for 5 on phins and decided to change gears for bottom fishing. We ran west hopping to find some hard bottom since I didn’t have any bottom fishing numbers to start at. Along the way we saw an 8 foot hammerhead swimming at the surface and a bit further a mola mola (pretty cool). We stopped on a couple of spots that appeared to be hard bottom spots (but weren’t in hindsight) that didn’t have any fish on it-well, one shark (disappointedly) and then decided to try some artificial reefs I had gotten the public numbers for. As expected the numbers were off and after a short attempt to find each spot but not finding it we moved off to other artificial reefs. We finally found some relief off the Capo Reef and played with a cobia that wasn’t interested in anything we threw at it. Then the AJs found us and we played with a couple of them but a cuda took care of the one we were gonna keep. At 1600 hrs, knowing that it was blowing up over land (weather) we stowed everything and got our raingear on and headed in.
The day was outstanding and the seas were too. Despite only catching 5 dolphin (5 for 5, largest went 16 lbs) we were both pretty pleased with the day and the introduction to the new fishing grounds was a success.
Me with a cow
At the dock we took a final photo and were pleased with the day. As a new concept to me we ran a total of 178 miles, which is approximately 3-4 times what a normal grouper fishing trip would be for me grouper fishing out of Cedar Key or Steinhatchee, my previous fishing locations. This increased travel distance and the learning curve of getting to know a new area will keep me busy for quite a while.
Jay with the days catch
Making notes so I can better understand what acceptable conditions are for running offshore (maybe for others too?), the conditions were a swell height of only 2.6 ft with a period 7.7 seconds. Winds had dropped from 7 knots out of the west hours before we left to 5 knots out of the east during our fishing day. Offshore the sea conditions were outstanding and in the afternoon (before the storm) were almost lakelike. Running offshore the surface temperature was a constant 74.4° F with a temperature increase of 2° F at the ledge. We only saw 4 boats on the horizon at the ledge-I was expecting more but then again it was a weekday. It was a sweet day on the water and it was extremely nice to get offshore for the first time off the east coast.
HooYah!!
Brian
