Florida Road Trip 2012/2013 [Part 3 of 4]

[MuskieBait]

Jan 3, 2013

It’s great when you wake up to this at your hotel…



We decided to check out a shore spot right by one of the decommissioned bridges. This area has a rubble bottom with some sand patches, a few boulders and beds of seagrass. I was hoping to find a couple new species of porgy here, plus some new grunt species. Everything would be new species for Michael.

It took a while to set up my gear. In the meanwhile, Michael had already landed a Littlehead Porgy. I’ve caught that species before so at least I’m not missing out.

I set up a #14 sabiki rig and started searching for smaller grunt species. My first catch was a Bluestriped Grunt. This was a picture I took of a larger one caught the next day. The smaller ones were just a little darker in colour and less colourful.

Bluestriped Grunt (Haemulon sciurus) – new species #10



A few more White Grunt later, I had a nice little surprise. I’ve caught Lane Snapper before but had a poor picture of it. It was my target to catch some to photograph…and I didn’t expect to catch one so soon.



A couple of casts later, I caught a Yellowtail Snapper. Just like the Lane Snapper, it was a species I needed a photograph for my record…and now there is a stunning picture!



Although the sabiki was doing fairly well, I want to catch my porgy species. I started fishing a dropper loop with squid, and found a Littlehead Porgy…not a new species. Porgy are very strong for their size and they are a lot of fun!



Not too long later, I had another stronger fish on line again, and it was a Southern Puffer!

Southern Puffer (Sphoeroides nephelus) – new species #11



At around 11pm, the current started to build on the incoming tide. The water was littered with seagrass and it was difficult to fish the dropper loop. I returned to fishing the sabiki and found a Hairy Blenny. I’ve caught a female of this species before. Now I have a picture of the male of the species.



I was fishing the sabiki tight against the ledge along the sea wall. Many little Sergeant Majors and other damselfish were hiding under the ledge. Occasionally, something else were hiding there, including a juvenile Black Grouper! This is a picture of another larger juvenile Black Grouper I caught the next day.

Black Grouper (Mycteroperca bonaci) – new species #12



While fishing the dropper loop, I had a couple of cowfish follow the larger chunk of squid. When I was fishing along the sea wall, a cowfish came out of nowhere and bit the sabiki! On the first bite, it striped the squid tentacle off the bottom sabiki hook. I dropped the sabiki down fully and the fish started nibbling on the second sabiki hook on the slack line…and when I was confident the fish took the entire hook in the mouth, I set the hook and the cowfish gave a spirited fight!

Scrawled cowfish (Acanthostracion quadricornis) – new species #13



With increasing current, small grunts were found holding around a large rock. We started catching the small grunts to keep as bait. When the tide finally reach slack high, we had about 10 small grunts. Since the slack tide shut down the bite, we decided to grab lunch and headed to another spot near a bridge to try our hands at some big game shore fishing.

This bridge spot was suggested by a friend. He told me that the first and second bridge support often hold Goliath Grouper, and the water in the area is very sharky. We set up a 6/0 reel loaded with 260 yards of 60lb mono, topped with 30 yards of 100lb mono, and tied on a Carolina rig using an 8oz egg sinker to a 310lb barrel swivel that was part of a 180lb single strand steel leader. At the end of the steel leader was a 10/0 circle hook. This is our “big game rig”.

I could cast this rig about 40-50 yards, but accuracy was pretty poor. So before we deploy this rig out, we cast out small grunts using 3/0 and 4/0 size gear. We put a 14” hound fish on the big game rig and dropped it from the bridge to the first bridge support.

We were fishing an outgoing tide. Our bait were dropped in the eddy behind the bridge support on the down current side. We were hopeful that a shark or a Goliath Grouper would come knocking. However, throughout the tide change and the evening, the rig sat silent. When Michael caught a Schoolmaster Snapper, we dropped it as a livebait and even that was not bit.

Meanwhile, both Michael and I had a couple of rips on the small grunts. In both cases, the fish ripped the grunt off the 5/0 circle hook. We could only guess what it may be. When it was dark, Michael found a couple of Schoolmaster Snappers just under legal size around the bridge support. I was watching our livebait well and saw a moray eel nosing around. By the time I got a rig ready the eel had left. However, an hour later, I saw an eel hiding right amongst the rocks close to shore. I managed to get it to bite with the head of a squid. I was successful in pulling the eel out of the rock, but while waiting for Michael to clear his line and step back so I can swing the eel onto shore, the eel cut my 30lb mono with its sharp teeth. That eel could have made some wonderful shark bait!

We fished until 10pm with very little action. At the end, we decided to call it a day and return to the hotel for the night.

Jan 4, 2013

We started the day early again at our previous morning spot. Our hope was to fish the slack low early since it was more fishable when there was less seagrass. The bite was fairly slow to start this morning. I caught a small Littlehead Porgy almost immediately, but then the bite was slow. I tossed out a dropper loop for a while to fish on a deadstick. I caught a couple of Southern Puffer but no more porgy. Surprisingly, I found a Buffalo Trunkfish biting!

Buffalo Trunkfish (Lactophrys trigonus) – new species #14



While checking bait and casting out again, I was just setting the baitrunner on my reel and putting the rod down when line was ripped out of the reel! There was a strong fish on the other end and it was pulling decent drag off my Shimano Baitrunner 4500 with 50lb braid and a 30lb dropper loop. The #6 hook was holding fine and I added a little more pressure on the fish. We finally saw the fish and I was super excited. It was a nice Yellow Jack! There were stunning electric blue marking on a golden body…the picture can’t do the fish justice!

Yellow Jack (Carangoides bartholomaei) – new species #15





I sent out my rig again. Another 15 minute passed before there was a good strong run on the baitrunner! I told Michael to grab the rod since I was fishing a sabiki away from the rod. When I got there, the fish had already ran out 1/4 of my spool. I put a little more pressure trying to stop it, but the fish put on a second stronger run. At this point, I was calling either a shark or a ray. Finally, the fish slowed and I was slowly pumping the rod to gain line. The fish came in fairly easily until it saw us. It was a stingray, and it now decided to sit on the bottom. I start strumming the line to annoy the ray and it worked. The ray swam off on a little run again but we managed to hold it close to shore. A few moments of trying to fit it into the pier net…and we lifted it up over the seawall!

Southern Stingray (Dasyatis americana) – new species #16



It has a nasty stinger that I was trying to stay away from getting stung.



We didn’t have any more excitement when the tide came in. It was quite hard to fish the dropper loop since the current was full of seagrass. We only had 3 small grunts and two porgy for bait, but we decided to grab lunch and try one of the bridges for the afternoon bite.

When we arrived at our bridge spot at 2pm, the tide was still coming in at this spot. We were fishing from the old car bridge. People were casting toward the new car bridge. Michael and I decided to fish in the eddy of the bridge support of our bridge using a dropper loop rig with 3 hooks and a 3oz sinker. We were immediately into a mess of grunts!

We started off with a few Bluestriped Grunts, but then I found a small Mangrove Snapper.



The next fish was a Sailor’s Grunt!

Sailor’s Grunt (Haemulon parra) – new species #17



We set up a couple of rods to target sharks. Maybe we were a little naïve to start. Michael was fishing a small grunt with 40lb mono tied to a 5/0 hook. I was fishing a 6oz egg sinker on a Carolina rig with 60lb mono leader and 40lb mainline. I put a small grunt on the 5/0 circle hook too. Both Michael and I got picked up and broken off within the first 30 minutes of soaking our bait. Michael saw his shark surfaced and said it was a 5-6 foot shark. I didn’t get to see my fish, but it ran off some line very quickly before breaking me off as I engaged the reel.

After that, we set out a large grunt on the 6/0 rig with 180lb leader. On my rig, I tied on 20 yards of 100lb mono rub leader plus a 3’ section of 80lb stee leader. Strangely, neither Michael nor I got another shark hit once we switched to steel leader. It was a little disappointing.

While I was fishing the dropper loop, I saw some needlefish follow my bait. They would grab the bait but let go when they felt tension on the line. So I rig up a light spinning rod with 8lb mainline, 12lb fluoro leader and a #14 octopus hook. I put on a small piece of squid and drifted the bait with the current without any weight on the line. The needlefish were quick to key in on the drifting bait. When one of the picked up the bait, I opened the bail to let the fish take line without feeling tension. When I felt the fish had taken the bait far enough, I set the hook into my first Atlantic Needlefish!

Atlantic Needlefish (Strongylura marina) – new species #18



We caught more grunts on the dropper loop. Whenever we can, we cut up a grunt to send out some fresh bait on the shark rig. While replenishing our grunt supply, I found a female Redtail Parrotfish!

Redtail Parrotfish (Sparisoma chrysopterum) – new species #19



Michael was fishing one piling and caught the first of many Porkfish. For some reason, I caught many more Bluestriped Grunt, White Grunt and Sailor’s Grunt but can’t find one of these Porkfish. Michael caught so many Porkfish that he sent one out on a balloon rig when we saw these guys.



There was a small school of tarpon holding in the current right at our bridge spot. There were a couple of them that looked to be over 100lbs! The current was outgoing now and the tarpon were facing away from us into the current, so there was no way for us to get a bait to these fish when they were holding under the bridge away from us. When they finally swam around, they passed right by the balloon rig without so much as a look. They were obviously looking for something else to chew on…maybe mullet, shrimp or crab.

Toward the evening, there were a few more chunky White Grunts. I could have kept a few for the table…but it was too much work to lug the big cooler of ice onto the bridge.



Finally, after cursing at Michael a few times for catching all my Porkfish, I finally caught my first…and definitely won’t be the last. Once I caught my first one, they seemed to be everywhere!

Porkfish (Anisotremus virginicus) – new species #20



The action was good even as the sun sets.



After the sun set, the fishing changed. Fish vacated the bridge pilings and were now found about 40 yards from the bridge on the sea grass bed. Annoyingly, Michael kept catching Schoolmaster Snapper without trying. I have yet to catch a Schoolmaster Snapper, but while we were fishing the same rig in the same area, I kept hooking up grunts. When the fish finally stopped hitting, we simply tossed out our dropper loop and wait for a bite. Sometimes, it could be 10 minutes until the next bite. Sometimes, it could be 30 minutes. When I finally had a bite, I found an Oyster Toadfish!

Oyster Toadfish (Opsanus tau) – new species #21



We grabbed a couple of camping chair to prepare to fish all night. We were hoping that the shark bite would improve at night. However, the current was ripping all night and we our lines were constantly fouled by seagrass. We had to clear the lines every hour or so, but that also allowed us to send out fresh bait. Between 7pm – 11pm, there were a few guys fishing next to us trying for grouper and sharks. They caught a bonnethead shark using cut herring. When they finished fishing, they left half a mullet and some cut herring on the pier. Michael found their leftover and we changed our baits to cut herring.