It begins with the usual prep on a Sunday morning, loading my vessel for another trip out the St. Lucie Inlet. Seas were flat we had rain clouds off shore early morning.
First order of business is to secure some live baits for the livewell.We checked the sandhill for some live baits with no luck, ran past the House Of Refugee with no luck. Fortunatley we managed to secure a couple of dozen baits that came within reach of the boat.
We setup for the first drift past a seventy foot reef with not much happening with the exception of a few cut offs.Then we decided to move south and setup on a color change thats was about 10 miles north of the St. Lucie Inlet. We the new adjustment to our position, we hooked up with two king mackerals in the ten pound range. After a short break we moved further south pretty much staight the St. Lucie Inlet. After retying from another cut-off, my Penn 7500 took off with a run of line that can never be forgotten! After losing about three quarters of the spool, I decided to chase the fish with the boat. After about a twenty five minute battle, I saw down about 30 feet a 5-6 foot shimmering fish.I yelled to the mate,"Get the Gaff it's a big one!". After another short run, the giant was being attacked by a bigger fish, about a 6-7 foot Shark. After losing about 3 feet of the magnificant King fish it weighed in about 40 pounds of what was 3/4 of a fish. I estimate the King to be in the 50 pounder possibly 60 pound range!! As I always say a half of loaf of bread is better than nothing! In this case a half of fish or better is better than nothing!! As luck would have it by having about three feet of my King cut off I was able to fit the remainder of the fish in my 49 gallon fish box! For now, I'm Capt Sal from St. Lucie Sportfishing Charters, stay safe & fish well!
