Went to sleep Tuesday night with a 1-2’ forecast and seas at the 41004 2’ @ 4seconds. I was hoping to wake up Wednesday AM with the period a little longer and seas of 1 -2’. Woke up @ 4AM and no luck. 41004 showed 3.6’ @ 12 seconds with average period of 4 seconds. Met my friend Jamie and loaded boat at DI marina @ 5 AM. Decided to go to Mt. P. Bojangles for a cajun biscuit and some hot coffee and wait for some daylight before breaking the jetties.
Left DI Marina @ 6:15AM and were met with an ocean that was a little confused. Seas were inconsistent at best but still made it out to 125’ of water averaging 28-30. Didn’t see any bait busting the top on the way out so we brought out the sabiki around a yellow buoy about 40 miles off of Edisto. Only bait was some 8" to 10" sand perch which we put in the live well. Jamie did catch several 18" sea bass on the bottom @ the buoy with the sabiki. Left to go to first waypoint in 120’. As we came to our first number, realized that another boat had beat us too it (Miss Amanda, I was later told by a friend who also fished yesterday). Decided to fish other numbers in same general area and never got closer than 750’ to Miss Amanda so we couldn’t be accused of cornholing.
The large black sea black sea bass bite was on all day long. Jamie and I limited out on large BSB and caught only a couple that were less than 12". Only kept them if they were 14" or better since I don’t care to fillet the smaller fish. I only used Shimano jigs or live bait all day while Jamie used cut mullet and cigar minnows. Interestingly, we each put in equal amounts of fish into the box. The jig color of preference was pink. Even caught a >4lb trigger fish on the jig! Oh, and the large 18"+ sea bass ate the large sand perch (10") all day. No grouper.
Pulled out @ 2:30 and came back in @ 24-25 for the first 20 miles and them opened it to 30 the rest of the way in. Pretty good day with a good friend.
Nice fish. We Wednesday too. Got our limit of nice BSB in 70’. The highlight of the day was my youngest son catching a 20" grouper on his new inshore rig he got for Christmas - a Penn Battle 4000 on a AG Veritas rod. It is sweet! He caught it on a $2.50 jig from wal mart which out fished all the high dollar jigs on the boat. Go figure. I think my wife (who was at work) also got tired of my texts from my new Spot device telling her I was OK :).
Key West 2300 SS
Yamaha f225
14’ Malibu
Johnson 25
Always great to take our children fishing. My next trip out will be with two of my boys. We, like you, will run to 70’ to catch sea bass. We had hoped to catch a keeper gag, scamp or two before the closure next week which is why we went deep. Glad you made it out too.
“Sometimes I think it’s a shame, when I start feelin better when I’m feelin no pain…”.
You could have scraped the gel coat off the Miss Amanda and not been accused of cornholing. We did about the same as ya’ll…big cbass, triggers, and pinkies. The wx kicked our butts as we started to head in from where we were at, but luckily, laid down enough for our ride in. Another safe and productive day on the water with good fishermen and even better friends.
Key West 21’6" BayReef
225 Honda
Tightlines and God Bless
Nice to finally fish with you Andy ; )
And yes I dont think Lynn would have minded at all. It was nice to see another boat or 4 out there yesterday. Glad to see yall caught some. Always a pleasure to fish aboard the Miss Amanda. Thanks again Lynn.
MMMMMMMmmmm I know whats for dinner tonight!
We left your area shortly after lunchtime and tried our luck in 110’. Anchored over some really nice structure but the Cbass bite to too voracious. I think I could have put ANYTHING on my hook and they would have hit it before the lead was on the bottom.
“Sometimes I think it’s a shame, when I start feelin better when I’m feelin no pain…”.
my buddy put out a chicken rig with no bait and caught c bass on all hooks …numerous times, so u are right about catching them on anything…or nothing even
