My Dad and I got out yesterday in the surf to find us some big spottail before he heads back out of town for work. We left out of Rockville and fished some spots from Botany on around up to Frampton’s and beyond.
Armed with a dozen shrimp and a pile of mullet, we posted up just outside the breakers and anchored up in the swell. Caught a dozen or so 30" fish and put a great smile on the old man’s face. It’s been a while since we’ve had any good luck out there, and he needed it. That grin says it all (If you know him, you know a smile is hard to come by!).
First fish of the day, though, was this big boy. Strangest catch ever…we got anchored and both threw out live finger mullet on the bottom. His rod doubled over and fish ran to the beach…then my spinning rod went off. He tangled us up!!
We both fight the fish to the boat, sure it was a shark…nope, BIG boy! Landed him and got him on the deck to discover he had picked up both of our baits. Notice in the pic he has two hooks in his mouth. I removed the hooks from the leaders and snapped a pic, then cut the barbs off of the hooks and he swam away unphased. Was a really cool experience, but we couldn’t decide who got to claim the fish, haha.
All fish caught on live or cut mullet on the bottom, and all fish released to fight another day.
Lots of people fishing in the surf at Botany, but never saw anyone hook up. We did have probably a dozen or so people stop on the beach and take our pictures though, some for more than 5 minutes…was a little weird but I guess people never get to see crazy rednecks anchored in the breakers fishing ON the beach, lol.
And of course, the Bentz-Craft did great, even on the snotty ride in with the east wind.
