The spanish before the king?

[Tarpon4me]

I finally got out for a great day of fishing this past Sunday. I posted the full report on the SC board for those who are interested. What surprised me was the spanish are in, and the kings aren't. ??????????? What's up with that? The water temp at 1 mile out was 67.5, and 69 at about 4 miles out. The spanish were inshore in the cooler water. Usually the kings make thier way in with the mid level water temps and shoot offshore when it gets too hot. That's usually when the spanish come inshore because they don't mind the hot water temps so much.

I was heading out of the jetties when we saw birds dropping down. When I got a little closer I noticed small finger mullet being cut. I figured it was blues, so I rigged up a couple poles with #00 clarkspoons and a #1 planer just to see what's up. I couldn't believe it was spanish. LOL

AFter playing with those little guys, and scraping up a few fish over 20", I headed out to the reef. After I played with the sharks for a while, I pulled up anchor and dropped some Drone spoons down and hurdled the humps and structure for quite some time to try and dig up a king, but nothing. Kings are being caught offshore in 70' of water, but how wierd is this? []
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[CaptJoeVerdino]

Way to go Brian, looks like you will be well on your way to a spectacular season. Just a note on the gulf side our spanish and blues came in strong about 3 whole weeks before the kings. Then it was like gang busters for kings between 12-40 pounds. Now we are in the warmer water so kings are in 70ft or better.
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[Tarpon4me]

I hope this year will be good. We'll find out. [] So far it's looking up.

It's still wierd though. I thought for sure that what ever was cutting the mullet was either blues or small sand sharks. I'm glad I wasn't betting. But you see, it's different here than on the gulf. Picture this..............

5 miles out is only 30' deep, that's it. 10 miles out, you're lucky to find 60' of water. You've really got to take a ride to find deep water. There's very little structure and mostly just flat, sandy bottoms. The gulf is 55 miles out in the summer, and closer to 75 in the winter. So, as you can see, the conditions here are a little different. Once again, I am jealous of you guys in Florida. LOL!!! [cool]
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[CaptJoeVerdino]

It sounds like you live next door to me. 5 miles out we can still run aground. 60ft of water doesn't show up till 30 miles out. I run 55 miles to get 120ft deep. I just ran 88 miles to hit 180ft. Our loop current is 120-150 miles straight west and we have nothing but sand and a few wrecks. All our spanish are caught in sandy areas along the beach. Kings are taken over small patches of reef or any wrecks we have.

Only the panhandle and the Keys get deep water in less than 20 miles.
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[Tarpon4me]

That sounds about right. The major difference, however, is how far out the gulf stream is. 55 miles out to the edge of it in the summer, near 80 miles in the winter. That's why there's such a need for a big boat to target a few choice species. [] I can't afford a big bigger boat. Hell, I can barely afford to pay attention. []

Not to mention I got a traffic ticket this morning for expired tags, what a crock. They aren't even a month out of date yet. I never got the bill in the mail. LOL, i'm sure plenty of people say that, but I really didn't.
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