Surf Poons and Other Nearshore Delights
- September 19, 2007
- 0 Comments
- By Story/Photos By Matt Badolato
Another flat weekend in paradise. Can't complain though, there's plenty else to do besides surf. Came home this weekend from school in Orlando and decided that my side of the garage needed a cleanin'. I started stacking and organizing and soon I discovered that there was a 16' Carolina Skiff buried beneath the carnage! I drug her out, hitched her up, and loaded up the dive gear and a couple rods for a day on the big lake.
Headed out of the inlet by myself with the skiff and was greeted by a glassy ride southward to some diving spots along the beach. A bunch of boats were congregated just outside the inlet and with some closer inspection I saw that they were fishing amongst the massive schools of glass minnows that were being ripped to shreds by big bonita and Spanish mackerel. I had a few small diving plugs that perfectly resembled the frantic baitfish and in no time I was hooked up with some drag screamers, including a couple 15lb bonitas. Left the massacre after catching a few and was on my way again.
The water along the beachline was gin clear, top to bottom from the beach out to about 15 feet. Not the best its been lately, but certainly worthy of swimmin' with the fishes. My main dive flag for the boat flew out of the skiff on the way down A1A, so I was shitouttaluck when the Man approached me before I even anchored up. "That's the wrong one." I had a bouy with a dive flag attatched to it, but since I was diving off the boat, I would need two flags. "Yaw can risk it", the man says to me."But yaw takin' a risk if I come back round here now." So, no divey.
I trolled a big plug along the rocks and got slammed by some kind of reef dweller, but after about 10 seconds the hooks came out. Not a very dedicated hunter that fish was.
Another boat was anchored about 1/2 a mile from where I was and they had a dive flag up. I approached them cautiously and asked if they had an extra flag. "No, but you're welcome to tie up to us." Nice, so I was gettin wet after all. Viz was about 15-20', quite exceptional, but the lobster have been picked through pretty good. I only caught 3, two were too small, one was about 3lbs and I handed it over to the captain of my new mothership for saving my day.
Headed home when I noticed the thunderboomer brewin' in the west and got the boat and gear all de-salted by 6pm. Rode up to the beach with a rod and some swimbaits and saw HUGE schools of glass minnows once again being slaughtered, but this time by big tarpon, all around 60-80 lbs. Casting a storm on a light rod I hooked 2 and got some nice jumps, but couldn't stick a hook in one for long. Hooked a third, probly around 100lbs, on my shark rod on a butterflied Spanish mack from earlier. She spit it out too, but it was cool to see 'em dance.
I went offshore with my dad, brother, and friend on Sunday. We headed out trolling ballyhoo and found some extremely nice rips in 120-180. Had some split tail mullet out and nice ballyhoo, but all we could disturb was 5 or 6 barracuda. The water temp was around 86, way too hot to be a fish I guess. No weedlines whatsoever, hardly any flyers, and just a lack of life. We did catch a couple 10lb kingfish ON THE BOTTOM while jigging in 180' on some ledges. No AJ's, grouper, or snapper to be found. Eh, it just wasnt our day.
Well, thats all for this weekend, looks like we're gettin some waves the next few days so that should fuel the addiction till the weekend. The sun is brutal out there so lather up and longsleeve shirt it if your gonna be out there for any length of time. You don't wanna look like an alligator.