We left City Marina around 5:30 am and headed out to buoys 1,2 and the C buoy to jig up some bait. Bait was scarce, but we managed a few pinfish, some greenies, and a few ciger minnows to join the other live baits we caught from the dock the evening before. We headed out to the South just slightly and crossed over several weed lines in 150’ water. We dropped lines in dispersed weeds in 240’ and started trolling. The grass was miserable! We finally picked up a small gaffer, but things were staying pretty slow. Around 11:00 we picked up a peanut, and a sailfish took a swat at him while we were bringing him in. We dropped back to him, but he was already tailwalking his way out of the spread and wasn’t interested. It was great excitement! I had some dolphin tags onboard, so we stuck the peanut and sent him back swimming, only a little worse for the wear.
We made the switch to bottom fishing in 160’ water and came home with a nice variety of goodies. We weren’t looking to limit out on anything (other than grouper perhaps), so we continually changed methods and baits.
About 3:30, we started talking about packing it up when wham! zzzzzzzz! One of the Saragosas starts screaming in one of the crew’s hands! 10 min later we had a 36lb African Pompano onboard! This was a real treat and now ranks in the top 3 most delicious fish I’ve ever eaten.
The icing on the cake came at 4:00. We made the “one last cast” call, and as lines are coming in, one of the crew yells “there’s a dolphin under the boat!” I pitch some cut bait to him, which he gobbled up, while the crew grabs another rod to pitch to him. He nailed a whole squid they quickly put together and we ended the day with another little gaffer.
Overall- 3 grouper, 2 dolphin (small gaffers), 1 pinkie, 1 vermillion, 1 porgy (or silver snapper as they call it downtown), 1 huge queen trigger, and 1 beautiful African Pompano! It was a great day out there, other than a slightly wet ride home.
[img]http://old.charlestonfishing.com/forum/uploaded/NCSUtrey/201463010518_IMG_235