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+--- Thread: A Short Break From The Wind And Plenty Of Dolphin (/showthread.php?tid=64426)
A Short Break From The Wind And Plenty Of Dolphin - KnotNancy - 09-02-2003
As we left Spinnaker Marina on Sunday morning, the wind was almost nonexistent. This was a welcome relief from the way it has been blowing for the past several days. Our first order of business was to show 11 year old Matt Berish the large iguanas that nest in a group of trees on the way out of the canal to the Bay. They did not disappoint us. It was also Matt's first fishing trip off shore in the saltwater. To say the least, he was very excited.
A short run to one of the bait spots had us watching the terns and pelicans having a field day as they fed. The bait schools were easily spotted and one throw of the net had me struggling to pull the net in the boat. With bait accomplished we headed off shore in search of dolphin. The run out to the blue water was a rough and sloppy one despite the wind being down. Once we reached the blue water, the seas calmed down and it was quite comfortable for running and gunning. We found several groups of birds working before we found the right ones. We broke the ice and put 1 fish in the boat. We dodged numerous rain storms and noticed that the wind was picking up. Some more running and a larger group of birds put us back on the fish. It required trolling amongst the birds with the dolphin juniors to get them going. The school followed their hooked buddy to the boat and the action began. Eileen and Fred Clark along with Eileen's brother, Stephen Berish and his son Matt were all hooked up at once. The school didn't stay around too long and we added a few more fish to the box. So far, all of our action was taking place in 800' off the Twin Towers area. Each time the action stopped, we ran back south to find more birds, troll the juniors, and hook up more fish. The wind continued to pick up. The final school we hit was the largest and the one that hung around the longest. Eileen was busy casting and catching dolphin on a jig and 6# line. Matt had his hands full with the largest fish of the day and Dad was helping him. Fred was hooking up and having a blast. I was busy with landing, unhooking, rigging, and putting out another bait. And so it went until the school moved on. While we cleaned up the mess in the boat, I put out 2 baits. About the time the cleaning was done, Matt hooked up and was catching more fish. This happened twice and while I cleaned up for the last time, no baits were put out as we had enough dolphin.
Matt wanted to catch a barracuda, so off we went to find some larger baits to use. While catching the cuda baits, we also caught a nice size mangrove snapper that got added to our catch. Within a couple of minutes of putting out the large bait, a large barracuda crashed it. The hook up was short lived as it bit through the leader wire. Try as I might, I could not get another bite. Before running out to 200', we stopped at another bait spot and caught and released several small AJ's and another mangrove snapper. Out in 200', we made two drifts in some sloppy green water with no current. Despite some very heavy chumming with pilchards, we got no hits.
Our days catch was 17 dolphin in the 3 - 8 pound class, 4 amberjacks that were released, 2 mangrove snapper (1 released), and a great fish story about the barracuda that got away.
Captain Dave Kostyo
Knot Nancy Fishing Charters
305 620-5896 Charter
305 732-2628 Beeper
www.knotnancy.com
nkostyo@bellsouth.net
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