Steinhatchee offshore. Wednesday, 4-20 05 (grouper)

Big Bend Brian · Post by **Big Bend Brian** » April 23rd, 2005, 8:03 am

The goal for the day was cobia. Taking Bernie Fowlers 21 foot Key Largo, One Fish, we headed to Steinhatchee and were on the water by 6:30 a.m. On the way out we stopped to catch bait on a small spot of hard bottom in 24 feet. In about 20 minutes we filled the live well with really nice hand sized pigfish and spottail pinfish, but only a couple of pinfish. The seas were a solid 3 foot and safe anchoring would be questionable in deeper water so we blindly trolled for a bit hoping the seas would settle down. We trolled to 30 feet and only managed a 20 inch gag and 12 inch black seabass. With only a few miles to go to a small rock we powered up only to run across submerged bait (seen via the bottom finder) and a few gannets working the bait-it was too rough to see the bait on the surface. We pulled two Manns Stretch 25s and a small subsurface plug but managed only one small 7 lb kingfish. We continued trolling for a bit but no other macks.

In 39 feet we started fishing a small rock hoping a cobia would be present, but the baits were immediately intercepted by gags. We enjoyed a nice rally of gags. At one point I was dealing with an amberjack when I turned around to hear â€œwoman noisesâ€

Post by **birddog** » April 23rd, 2005, 8:12 am

Excellent report. Thanks for the details.

Post by **dolphinatic** » April 23rd, 2005, 8:13 am

sounds like a perfect day on the water to me

Post by **Eerman** » April 23rd, 2005, 9:36 am

Nice pic

Post by **qoutrage** » April 24th, 2005, 7:33 am

Nice write-up BB. Good day on the water for ya party. And thanks, for the fuel comment. We used 16.6 for 55 miles Wed, and I was wondering how that compared to other folks..
Thanks for the report.

Post by **tin can** » April 25th, 2005, 6:40 am

Well written.

Sounds like a good day to me.