Boy , how time flies. It shocked me when I checked and found it had been 28 days since my last report.
We opened snook season with a bunch of personal friends. Matt, April and young Tyler Tambor were joined by Capt Rick Morel for some late afternoon fun. They had a ball catching 9 snook and releasing 7 of these linesides. Their top fish were in the 20 pound class.
The next day we were joined by Kevin, Jackie and Ryan. This was a very busy trip with 3 king mackerel from 10 to 16 pounds, a load of bonito, a big tough spinner shark, several small bottom fish and a snook.
Karim caught his record grouper
Karim and his pretty lady joined us the next day and we found the fishing had slowed. We did find 6 dolphin fish under floating debris offshore. When we got back near shore we stopped at an artificial reef and caught a 22 pound gray grouper and missed a couple barracuda and spinner sharks.
We shot a show with Mark Sosin and had a good time. Our trip started strange when our first 4 baits were stolen by a bottle nose dolphin, a.k.a. flipper. He would remove those live speedos from a two hook rig without so much as bending the wire leader. Pretty tricky. Over 3 days we caught a lot of kings and bonito. We caught a couple nice muttons on a wreck. We had a ball with a school of dolphin offshore, especially when Sherman had to jump in the water to save a spinning outfit. Our best catches were spinner sharks, a real nice cobia and 3 snook.
Rick Zimmer brought Art and David out for some snook. They had a good night with 6 big snook to over 20 pounds and 2 more small enough to make great dinners for everybody.
Barry, Josh and Jake Shevlin joined Sue Cocking for a few hours one morning and we had a tough time finding 4 dolphin and a small amberjack to put smiles on everybody's face and dinner in the Shevlin's house.
We were then off to Bimini for a week. We had a ball fishing with a bunch of Dusky owners. Over the week we had numerous cobia, loads of yellowtail snappers, sharks, barracudas, about a million cero mackerel and a variety of other bottom fish. Our last fish of the trip was a 24 pound african pompano. Oh! we did find time to sample the rum at the evening parties. That Ralph Brown does know how to treat his boat owners.
When we got back it was swordfish time. It started a little rough. Roger, Lori and Donald had 4 bites, but only one fish wanted to come to the boat. We tagged and released that young swordfish.
Mike caught a couple swordfish
We then paid our dues. We fished two nights without a bite from the gladiators. When you go for the best of gamefish, sometimes they will spank you.
Well Mike Burdt got us straightened out on his second evening. He went from no bites and a rough ride home his first night up to two swordfish catches his second night. He caught swordfish of 49 and 53 inches and lost another when the line came too close to a spinning propeller. Shame on me in the dark.
Mike's third and final night was another fun trip with two releases and two other bites.
Frank Longo and his friends joined the fun on Saturday night. Frank boated a nice 64 inch 130 pound swordfish and Darrell and Rick each caught and released swordfish. A fine night with 4 swordfish eating the squid and 3 of them coming to the boat.
Frank scored with a great Swordfish
On Sunday Lillia brought her husband Evan out fishing for his birthday. They were joined by their terrific son Ariel and friend Alan. They had quite a variety with a couple small bottom fish in the ocean before heading into the bay. Inshore we caught several jacks a small gray grouper. Alan got the leader on two tarpon and even got nice pictures of one of them. Lillia caught and released a snook of well over 20 pounds. And Evan caught two snook between 28 and 32 inches, which they took home for dinner.
Lillia caught this monster snook
Since then I have been fighting a very tough cold while giving my thoughts to hopes of good news about the four wonder young people missing at sea. Our thoughts and prayer are for them and their families.
It is still swordfish season and the snook are still biting as well. The sailfish and tarpon will be here soon. Let's plan some fishing trips to make them feel welcome to our waters. E-mail me at captbouncer@bellsouth.net