January 28. First drops at 75 feet, 58 degree water. Second 85 feet, 60 degree water. Live/hard bottom areas between Edisto 60 and the North Hole area.
Lovely, smooth water both out and back. Smooth was a good thing because my wife and I took along her 85 year old father with a not so good back. Given limited endurance the plan was to go catching for a short day. Fantastic father daughter day. I am always thankful for father-in-law teaching his daughter to fish.
First spot, immediately in fish. Good mixture of species. Some decent BSB’s and grunts. Put back pretty much any BSB less than 15 and stopped at 10 total. A couple of legal but not large triggers.
Caught enough, quickly enough at the first spot to try some nearby numbers that had not been great before but never fished in winter. Plenty of fish this time. Added a nice whitebone porgy and an Almaco jack to the box before heading home with my personal limit on fish cleaning of 20. Only caught a few ARS, no reef donkeys, and nothing lost to sharks. Zero vermillion caught this trip.
New jigging outfit working well still. The conventional specialized slow pitch set up seems to work better than my spinning outfits for slow pitch. Even tested side by side this time out. Is the specialized rig worth the money? Nothing about offshore fishing has any financial logic.
Sunday dinner was a five fish species sushi/sashimi tasting. Sashimi, maki sushi and nigiri sushi. Almaco favorite of two of four tasters, that might surprise some people. Trigger and porgy also wonderful with porgy getting one vote for best. Fourth taster, undecided, ate everything.
Tomorrow looks ok to go out again, will see if the four-letter word (work) accepts the fishing plan.