This was the last day of the conference but I decided to skip the last bit of seminars for a chance for some bottom fishing. I called around and the closest and most reliable boat was in Atlantic Beach, Florida. So I made the 2.5 hours drive at 3:30am to arrive at the dock at 6:30pm. The ride on the Mayport Princess was $75 including the rod and reel rental, bait and the Florida fishing license. I highly recommend this boat to anyone to visit Jacksonville and St. Augustine.
Anyways, we left the dock at 7am and it was a 1.5 hours ride. We will be fishing in around 100 feet of water for red and vermillion snappers, black seabass, amberjacks and possibly some groupers as well. Cigar minnows are best for red snapper, amberjack and groupers, but they had a real tough time lately finding cigar minnows, so none were available for sale at the dock. Some of the locals did have some cigar minnows. They did well with some 20-30lb class red snappers and 10-25lb class amberjacks. Meanwhile, most of us who fished with squid landed black seabass, vermillion snappers and triggerfish.
Myself, I started with a 11” blacksea bass (Centropristis striata)…just an inch short of the legal limit.
Then it was a lot of vermillion snappers (Rhomboplites aurorubens) just short of the legal 14” length.
I even landed an 8” tomtate grunt (Haemulon aurolineatum)!
Toward the end of the trip, we had time to make some drops on a couple of wrecks. On my first drop, I caught a 7” tomtate grunt…and the deckhand suggested that I drop it back as livebait…so back into the water this little guy went.
It hit bottom and I reel it up a few feet above bottom. I started counting…10 seconds, 20 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds…BAM!
Holy cow! The reel was pretty much set to lock down drag because you definitely don’t want to fish to run into the wreck and cut you off. However, this also meant getting pulled to the rail when the fish decided to dig deep for the wreck! Of course, you were supposed to reel it up as quickly from bottom as possible…but between getting railed and trying to reel, it was quite a bit of work…not to mentioned being totally surprised by the sheer power of the fish on the other end of the line!
The deckhand came to help lift the rod off the rail and I finally was able to put more attention toward reeling. After the first 30 seconds, it was all me again and the deckhand went to get the gaff. It wasn’t so bad after the first run. The fish made a few more attempts to dive to bottom, but each one was shorter and shorter…eventually we had deep colour and it looked to be an amberjack! The fish looked short of the legal 28” limit so the dechkand just lifted it up.
Yeah…a 25” teenager amberjack…3” too short
It was about 10lbs.
It was just an awesome fight!
After my fish, the captain decided to try another wreck. My game plan was to find a small fish again for bait and drop it down for live bait. On the first drop, I caught an 8” tomtate grunt again…and back it went. Almost immediately, a fish slammed it hard but managed to miss the hook. I reeled in and the grunt was still there, so I dropped it again. Someone on the other side of the boat hooked into a big fish. As my grunt hit bottom, I got slammed again. At first, I thought maybe his fish had run into my line. I had to let my reel in freespool because you don’t want to cause the other person to lose his fish. But then I noticed that I actually had a fish on because his fish was not running under the boat but out the side…and my fish was running back. So I flipped the drag on and as soon as that happened, the line snapped. Of course…when I had the reel in freespool, the fish had ran to the bottom already. Oh well…can’t win them all.
For the last drops, I landed more vermillion snappers. Then it was another 1.5 hours ride back to port. Just before we arrived back to port, we passed by a marine base with a helicopter carrier as well as some gunboats. Pretty cool sights.
It was a great fishing day on a great boat with some very helpful deckhands and a very good captain who knows his spots. The price was also very affordable and I could have kept my limit of vermillion snappers and if I had some cigar minnows, it was also possible to land a few big snappers and amberjacks as well. Try this boat out if you have a chance!
Oct 8, 2009
This morning was my last day in Savannah. I went back to Tybee Pier looking for some sharks. Of course, I had some leftover shrimp from the redfish trip. I fished basically the same setup as last time, although I had bought a few shark rigs with 60lb braided wires so I fished with a whole mullet this time.
Someone from my right was catching small black drums every drop. So I took a bit of time to see how he was getting the action. He was flipping the bottom rig under the pier. So I did the same. I had a lot of small taps but couldn’t set the hook on the fish. After a while, I walked over to chat and see if he could give me any advice. He asked me to bring my rig over to see if I got it right. My #2 baitholder hooks, the bottom rig and 2oz lead was good. So I asked him about the light taps. He said don’t worry about the little bites but wait for the solid pull. So I went back to put his advice to work. I had a lot of bait thieves. Meanwhile, my teacher landed quite a few more black drums. Finally, I had one good tug and set the hook hard. The fish gave up a pretty strong fight on the medium rod and it was a 11” black drum (Pogonias cromis)!
After I figured it out, it was pretty easy fishing. I landed a number of drums from 10-12” and even caught a northern puffer (Sphoeroides maculates)!
The whole time, there were schools of finger mullet swimming around and occasionally, some predator would chase them from below. Then, I saw one of the school being attacked by a Spanish mackerel. At this point, I was down to my last few shrimps. So I put aside my medium spinning rod and set up the heavy UglyStik spinning rod with 25lb on the Penn 650SS. I put on one of the shark rig and tossed a whole mullet into the surf and bring it back, twitching and pausing to imitate an injured mullet. I fished this for about an hour before actually seeing a Spanish mackerel followed my mullet then hit it. I fed it some line as the mackerel ran…but when I set the hook, the head of the mullet and the hook came back. The mackerel managed to miss the hook. Oh darn!
The rest of the time, I fished the rest of the mullet with all of them falling off hook after repeated casting. Just before I left at 2pm, there was a good run of big spotted seatrout. People who were fishing with live shrimp caught these seatrout…but they wouldn’t touch dead shrimp. It was fun watching the action though.
Just before I got to my parking spot, I noticed this sign which I didn’t see the last time at night.
It was a great conference in Savannah and I learned a lot actually. The fish was a huge bonus and it was more than I had expected. In total, I caught 15 new species in total with only 5 days of fishing. It was pretty amazing!
Stay tuned for my second part of the trip…a visit to New York City, Long Island and Montauk.
