Slowly but Surely

This past week was a long one. The weather has been as good as it gets but the fishing has mostly been a guessing game as far as blue water fishing goes. On Wed. we had Ted Thrasher and friends. It was one of our better days bluewater fishing for the past couple of weeks with 2 yellowfin (very small) and 5 blackfin (3 of the blackfin were about 20lbs. the rest were small) 3 bull dolphin and 1 Amberjack. The biggest bull went about 35lbs. On Friday we had Ormando Ortiz and friends. They ended the day with their limit of A.J.'s, 10 red snapper, and 1 cobia. The snapper were biting as fast as you could put the bait in the water. There were a lot of throw backs which has been the norm lately. You have to fish thru the small fish to get the big ones. The cobia fishing should have been better for us. As most people that fish cobia know the hardest thing to do is see them, after that you can usually flip a jig, dead bait, or an old shoe to them and they will eat it immediately. Well, this wasn't the case on Friday. We saw seven cobia, right on the surface, perfect placement of the bait, but only two takers. Got one-lost one on the rod exchange. I know why it happens and it makes me cringe everytime, but in the process of handing off hooked fish they become unhooked and going from the rod holder to the belt always seems to give the fish an advantage. 99% of the time it is because of slack in the line. For the most part the bluewater fishing has been below average. Sure we are still catching fish but it hasn't been fast and furious. You really have to work for the fish right now. From the perfect sized live baits, running way out, and a lot of rig hopping is the only way to get it done. The Blue water fishing has really been off, one day good-One day bad. There is no consistent pattern right now. The only thing that has been consistent is that the bigger yellow fin have been tough to come by in the areas that usually hold them and most of the yellowfin that are being caught are measurers. The bull dolphin have not shown up in any big numbers yet but it will be any day. The rip lines are forming up perfect but their is not much on them yet. The amberjack are so easy to catch right now you don't have to have any experience to find them and have very little fishing ability. The bigger tuna and dolphin have really been the only fish that have been hard to come by for this time of year. Everything else is doing good. One other thing I noticed the other day while trolling a rip is the amount of small sea turtles. I stopped counting at 25, don't know how many I saw after that. But it is good to see them making a come back. We still have some open dates this month but very few.