Offshore Sept 8
Posted: September 8th, 2019, 8:25 pm
Headed out about 930 to what was a great weather forecast, light winds until 2pm, and then an increase to 10mph with a 4% chance of rain. The St. Marks river on the way out was slick calm.
So we headed offshore to around 30' and tried first for some bottom fish, water temps were around 84 to 85 all day. We caught numerous small black sea bass and sand perch, but nothing worth keeping. We saw several schools of bait near the surface, but nothing would eat what we were throwing. We pushed out a little further and began trolling. with a 4 rod spread I ran:
1) Drone spoon on a #1 planer
2) Duster with cigar minnow
3) Duster with bonita strip
4) Yozuri deep diver
After nearly an hour of trolling, nothing had produced even a hit. It also required multiple grass cleanings due to the heavy weeds offshore.
We gave up on trolling and tried the bottom again. We finally picked up a Spanish, and a short flounder, along with more black sea bass and other small fish.
Then we headed to a buoy and saw a nice bait school being hit around the area, that produced about 3 cutoffs, and finally a nice Spanish on a jerk bait. The wind began to pick up, so we headed to the Ochlocknee Shoals for a cool down, and the wind kept blowing while we were there, well beyond the 10mph predicted. I got cut off twice by houndfish hitting our Gulp and paddletails, so we switched over to a live bait drifted under a small cork. That paid off with a large houndfish into the boat after multiple jumps. He had completely swallowed the fish, and there was no hope of setting him loose, so we kept him to try some houndfish filets. ( See tomorrow in the "Cook What you Caught" thread )
Houndfish
Houndfish Teeth
The ride back ended up being quite rough. The wind kept blowing at 12-15 and the seas picked up to 1+ with a few 2' thrown in for good measure. Nonetheless the Dorado did well, at about 20 knots until we finally got behind the sandbars at St Marks.
( but everyone got wet!)
So we headed offshore to around 30' and tried first for some bottom fish, water temps were around 84 to 85 all day. We caught numerous small black sea bass and sand perch, but nothing worth keeping. We saw several schools of bait near the surface, but nothing would eat what we were throwing. We pushed out a little further and began trolling. with a 4 rod spread I ran:
1) Drone spoon on a #1 planer
2) Duster with cigar minnow
3) Duster with bonita strip
4) Yozuri deep diver
After nearly an hour of trolling, nothing had produced even a hit. It also required multiple grass cleanings due to the heavy weeds offshore.
We gave up on trolling and tried the bottom again. We finally picked up a Spanish, and a short flounder, along with more black sea bass and other small fish.
Then we headed to a buoy and saw a nice bait school being hit around the area, that produced about 3 cutoffs, and finally a nice Spanish on a jerk bait. The wind began to pick up, so we headed to the Ochlocknee Shoals for a cool down, and the wind kept blowing while we were there, well beyond the 10mph predicted. I got cut off twice by houndfish hitting our Gulp and paddletails, so we switched over to a live bait drifted under a small cork. That paid off with a large houndfish into the boat after multiple jumps. He had completely swallowed the fish, and there was no hope of setting him loose, so we kept him to try some houndfish filets. ( See tomorrow in the "Cook What you Caught" thread )
Houndfish
Houndfish Teeth
The ride back ended up being quite rough. The wind kept blowing at 12-15 and the seas picked up to 1+ with a few 2' thrown in for good measure. Nonetheless the Dorado did well, at about 20 knots until we finally got behind the sandbars at St Marks.
( but everyone got wet!)