We splashed the boat in at 8 am. Took us almost 20 minutes to round up enough bait as they were very scattered - I think the now recognized me with my castnet. We fish for trout around the south birdrack from 8.30-11 am with only 3 keepers that Dave caught. I was throwing topwater most of the time, had one nice hook-up but I lost it. I did bring in a lizard fish - on top water? Dave also caught several ladyfish and this little grouper.
With the nice sea condition, we decided to execute our plan by pointing the bow to the west and put the hammer down, destination Steinhatchee reef. As soon as we anchored up, while I was busy rummaging through my tackle box to change from popping cork to a bottom rig, Dave at the back yelled "get the net". He already had a nice flounder on.
Not a few minutes later, when I was halfway rigging, I was again rudely interrupted. He had another fish on, and this one is taking some drag.
It turned out to be a baby AJ. We could see a whole school of them little guy swiming around following their hooked comrad.
When I finally got to drop my bait down, it was imediately being hammered. It put up great a fight on my lite tackle trout rod. Didnt thought a grunt would fight this hard - then again, I usually winched them up with my 4/0 rig, which now seemed hardly fair at all.
While having fun with the grunts, I had good hit and this one took some drag. Thought it might be another Aj, but it turned out to be a little red grouper.
While we were busy catching grunts, a school of 8 or more cobia showed up, and being as lucky as I am, I quickly hooked the smallest one in the school - it was too short to keep, and was let free.
Luckily, Dave was hooked up right away as soon as mine was in the net. During the 20 minutes fight, the saying "bringing a knife to a gunfight" was brought up more than one accassion.
Dave ended up landing the fish - yep, over 33 to the fork. We also brought in another legal fish before they went away. I wish Joe or Calvin was with us as I wanted that 40 pounder that keep swimming around during the fight. But, we are happy with the two in the box.
This is what we brought home.
And, afer some quick knife work.
In total, we brought home 6 different species of fish - trout, seabass, flounder, grunts, spanish and cobia. We could add AJ, lizardfish and ladyfish to the list, which we didnt keep. And if we count progy, pinfish and pigfish, we caught a total of 12 species of fish. There's no better way to answer someone who ask why do you like fishing in saltwater more than in freshwater.
