We had been looking forward to this morning for quite a few days. It seems like it had been forever since we were able to fish and finally the weather (winds/seas) looked like they were going to cooperate.
We left the dock shortly after 7:30. There was a beautiful sunrise on the St. Lucie River and it was pretty calm.
We weren't the only ones who thought today was going to be a good day.
It was a little bumpy out of the inlet, but that wasn't going to stop us. We headed to the bait spot and barely got the rig in the water when all of a sudden, we had a full stringer. This happened over and over again until we had plenty in the live-well.
With the bait stocked, we were ready to start drifting. We zipped off to what we hoped would be the magic spot, got everything set up and waited.
It wasn't the most gentle of waits either. In fact, it was kind of like being in a washing machine. I don't know what the weatherman was doing when he forecasted the weather for the morning. Yes, we were expecting 2-3 foot seas, but we weren't expecting 20-25 mph winds!
Needless to say, we drifted for a little while and then decided to troll in toward shallower waters. We got 2 of our baits knocked down, but nothing stuck.
We trolled around a while longer, listening to the chatter on the radio. (You know it's a bad day when the charter captains are exchanging information on bonita and barracuda just so their charters can catch a fish!)
Finally, we got something that stuck. It went after the pink teaser first and then the bait. It put up a little bit of a fight while Frank cleared the lines. Once we got it to the boat we realized it was a bonita! (Not something we like catching because they aren't very tasty eating.)
Towards the mid-afternoon, the seas started to calm and we were able to see many things floating on the surface. I spied something brown and Frank pointed us in that direction. "Was it a coconut? Could it be a wooded box? What about a 'square grouper'?" We started getting giddy with excitement because these are the things we look for when fishing! If they've been around for a while, they usually have a whole fish-food-chain below them.
Turned out to be none of the above.
Feel sorry for the fellow who lost it...hope his noggin didn't get too sunburned.
That was it! All we got today was bait and one bonita! On the other hand, it was a very sunny day with a bit of a cool breeze, the seas finally settled down and we saw lots of porpoise and turtles.
Let's hope tomorrow will be a more productive day.
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