June & July Offshore
Posted: June 17th, 2020, 9:32 am
I'm just going to consolidate all my offshore activity here for a few months.
Headed out last Friday into a thick fog, which made for slow going to start. It was almost 830 before it began to lift and we could run over 20knts.
We headed offshore to begin finding some bait schools, and came across this sailboat, they flagged us down, and told us they had been hit by lightning 2 days previously, and had been without electronics the entire time. Fortunately, their motor was working, and they were headed into Shields for repairs. We gave them a compass heading from where we were to get to the St Marks channel, and off they went.
We found some bait, loaded up the livewell, and headed south, looking for snapper.
We never found any snapper, we looked around at various spots in 50'+ water, but never located any. We did find some grunt, some bsb, and the ever present AJ's. Water was clean offshore, but pretty rough inside of 5 miles.
Thunderheads began to form around 1pm, so we headed in.
We were going to try again on Saturday, and as others have noted, the forecast was WRONG. We played around inshore for a few hours, talked to Geofish on the radio, and ended up wandering offshore around 11. Seas were around 1.5 to 2 with an occasional 3' thrown in for good measure, but we moved slowly. We ended up on Dog Ballard, water clarity was much better than inshore. We chummed, soaked baits, and got broke off on a few fish, got Goliath'd at least once, and finally landed a cobia that came in at 32.5".
Fishing Chris was able to get up in the tower and help direct activities, providing words of encouragement and direction.
I also tried my new Apalachee Inshore hat. I haven't determined the luck level of this hat, but I'll keep wearing it to see if it works better than my old hat.
Headed out last Friday into a thick fog, which made for slow going to start. It was almost 830 before it began to lift and we could run over 20knts.
We headed offshore to begin finding some bait schools, and came across this sailboat, they flagged us down, and told us they had been hit by lightning 2 days previously, and had been without electronics the entire time. Fortunately, their motor was working, and they were headed into Shields for repairs. We gave them a compass heading from where we were to get to the St Marks channel, and off they went.
We found some bait, loaded up the livewell, and headed south, looking for snapper.
We never found any snapper, we looked around at various spots in 50'+ water, but never located any. We did find some grunt, some bsb, and the ever present AJ's. Water was clean offshore, but pretty rough inside of 5 miles.
Thunderheads began to form around 1pm, so we headed in.
We were going to try again on Saturday, and as others have noted, the forecast was WRONG. We played around inshore for a few hours, talked to Geofish on the radio, and ended up wandering offshore around 11. Seas were around 1.5 to 2 with an occasional 3' thrown in for good measure, but we moved slowly. We ended up on Dog Ballard, water clarity was much better than inshore. We chummed, soaked baits, and got broke off on a few fish, got Goliath'd at least once, and finally landed a cobia that came in at 32.5".
Fishing Chris was able to get up in the tower and help direct activities, providing words of encouragement and direction.
I also tried my new Apalachee Inshore hat. I haven't determined the luck level of this hat, but I'll keep wearing it to see if it works better than my old hat.
