Finally some small winds, small seas, and sunny forecasted. With dreams of limiting out on Mahi and getting in our meat fish slam, sleeping tuesday night was tough and getting through work was difficult in the morning. It is my favorite time of year to fish!
We left the dock around noon, Capt Jay, Woody, and two newbies on the PainKiller. We headed to the Georgetown Hole. Arrived around 1:30 and started to troll. Water temp was 70.8. Weedlines were forming. And NOTHING. I mean NOTHING was going on. We experienced a run of short strikes, so short they didn’t pop out of the clips. Finally landed a pee-wee football sized tuna. Martins first Tuna. More short strikes.
Stopped and casted into the weed mats. Mat after mat of nothing. Didn’t matter what we threw, nobody was responding. Then troll. Then cast. Scattered weeds, trolling was difficult. When we were clearing lines and birds nests, the tuna would surface. By the time the lines were clear, the tuna were down and not interested.
Off to deeper water. Much warmer, 74 degrees, but no weed lines. Just scattered. We had a few more short strikes. Nothing to dramatic.
Capt Jay, the one who hates bottom fishing the most, said the B word. We found great bottom, easy to do at the GT Hole, and dropped to the bottom. Grouper, grouper, grouper! They were hungry. Took a few bottom rigs into the rocks, then Scamp, Scamp, Gag, Strawberry, big Silver Snappers and even a Squirrel fish. Jay had a reel malfunction (why he insists on ebay reels I don’t know), and had to HANDLINE what turned out to be a small AmberJack.
Time to run home in the beautiful seas. Back at dark.
It was frustrating. Too many weeds fouling our lines. Way too many tangles.
I am glad the grouper are back in season - everyone had a chance to reel in a fish, and we salvaged the day!
Tight lines,
Jason
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