Sometimes, the best plan comes crashing down. Originally, my morning flight allowed an entire day to fish the jetties in Port Canaveral. However, the weather had other thoughts and we ended up flying in a line of thunderstorm in front of a cold front. Up and down the eastern seaboard. It was a very rough ride with many succumbing to motion sickness and people praying for their lives. Luckily, we landed safely in Orlando, albeit 2 hours late. But I’ll take better late than never.
About an hour later, I arrived at La Quintas Inn on International Drive under ominous conditions.
With lightning and thunder all around, the fishing plans for the day was cancelled. Oh well, I guess I’ll spend some time at BassProShops. The large aquarium had tarpons, whipers, redfish, gars and of course giant largemouth bass and HUGE bluegills.
Couldn’t resist this picture
5 hours later and $200 less, I walked out of BPS with a collection of saltwater trolling goodies and some Sufix 832 braid on the two conventional reel. I was ready for some kingfish and bonita!
My friend Kazu, who flew down from Vancouver, arrived later that night at 11:30pm. After I picked him up from the airport, we grabbed a quick bite and retired for the night. We have an early fishing schedule the next day.
April 1, 2011
I woke up to the watch alarm and the morning wake up call seconds apart. At 5am, it was still fully dark. As the cold front moved through overnight, the air had a crisp but cool feel. Kazu had a long day of traveling previous and he was too tired to fish today, so I was traveling solo toward Port Canaveral for a full day of fishing on the party boat, the Orlando Princess.
As the sun rose at Port Canaveral, I missed a few street signs with the sun directly in my eyes. I arrived at the dock with a few minutes to remaining before the boat left. Luckily, my stern spot was placed on hold thanks to an advance reservation
. The regulars were making bait with sabiki. The premier bait, pinfish, were slow to bite and it was scratch bait making. I didn’t have time to make any bait before the boat was on the way.
This is April in Florida. Kingfish and false tunny are starting to filter into the area. I rigged up a 4” tuna feather on the 40lb class rod and trolled for 1.5 hours to no avail. When we were closer to our fishing marks, the trolling rig was switched out for an 8oz egg sinker, a 150lb swivel, 2 feet of 60lb mono and a 3/0 circle hook. With the first drop of this “chicken rig”, my TFO 7’ teaser rod bent at the tip. I took up the slack, reeled tight and a fish was on the other end. Although the black seabass season was closed due to overfishing, this was the first of countless black seabass from 7” to 4lbs that I landed and had to throw back.
A little later, I made an 8” tomtate and it was destined for bait.
I dropped the tomtate on the 60lb class rental rods and had the tomtate somehow worked itself off the 5/0 circle hook unbeknownst to me. Who knew how long I had been soaking without a bait…but I reeled up disappointingly to an empty hook 45 minutes later when we moved to a new spot.
While we were moving, I rigged up a sabiki rig on the spinning rod. As soon as we arrived, instead of making bait, I dropped a dead sardine to see if I could capitalize on any snapper or grouper on the first go. A few more black seabass later, I decided to make some bait. Others were already catching some keeper flounder, one nice gag grouper and a mutton snapper on pinfish. I am seriously missing out.
I dropped the sabiki and it was quickly grabbed. Two round scad (aka cigar minnows) came up. These are also prime bait for red snapper…but it is also a new species on the list.
6” Round Scad (Decapterus punctatus)
A few minutes later, my round scad was wasted on another black seabass
I made bait again. This time it was a pinfish and a small black seabass. Instead of using a bell sinker on the bottom of the sabiki rig, I clipped on a 2oz jigging spoon and got a bonus throwback fish
As the pinfish went swimming on bottom, there was some commotion on the other side of the boat. One of the deckhand landed a 30lb cobia! That was the one and only cobia landed on the day. It would have been so nice to see some more of them.
My pinfish was robbed again by black seabass, while the pinfish a lady was soaking 10 feet from me landed a keeper size American red snapper. Who said fishing doesn’t require luck? Same rig, same bait, but the boat swung off a slightly different angle and one person lands a nice fish while the other wallowed in mediocrity
A little later, the man beside me, who actually taught me lots of new things this day, was freelining a pinfish and brought a small kingfish into the boat. He was fishing at the stern corner spot and he had all the versatility to fish different methods. I was fishing next to a number of people and had to worry about line tangles and drift directions. Corner spots are usually given to regulars though…it is almost impossible to get them.
At the 4th spot for the day, I saw a 3’ remora eating pieces of discarded bait behind the boat. I tried for 30 minutes freelining pieces of squid or dead sardines to it. It would come up time and time again to bump my bait but never taking it. As life would have it, the lady 10 feet from me was reeling in to change bait when the remora attacked her bait
Some days, when it just isn’t you day, there is nothing you can do. 
As quickly as it began, the 5 hours on the water was over. We were fishing 20-30 miles offshore and the return ride was 2 hours. Instead of trolling my way home, I decided to take a long nap for the drive back to the hotel.
We arrived back at port by 5pm. After a day of fishing, I failed to catch my prime targets (American red snapper, grey triggerfish, Atlantic sharpnose shark) and was a little bummed. Instead of heading back to the hotel, I decided to fish Jetty Park to see if I could add sheepshead to my list…but I was just asking for more punishment.
It was $10 to park and fish at the pier and $7 for shrimp and clams for bait. I had only 3 hours max to fish the area but I knew I would regret it deeply if fishing this area wasn’t even attempted. The inlet was really muddy and the current was strong after the storm. Fish were not active but the juvenile turtles were everywhere!
Fishing with a splitshot rig and #8 hook, I was getting a barrage of short bites and stolen bait. An hour of frustration later, I put on a #14 hook and finally hooked the thief. It was a small goby that I had yet to identify. It is a new species for sure though.
I switched to a Carolina rig to see if there are any redfish or black drum around. Closer to sun set, I had a good tap and found a smaller species of croaker.
7” striped drum (Umbrina broussonnetii)
That was it for the evening. I ended the day without any of my targets met…but was happy with 3 new species by accident.
April 2-5, 2011
These were my conference days where I was up at AACR from 8am – 8pm basically solid all 4 days. It was the first conference where I did not even fish in the morning or evenings. There was a lot of professional advancement seminars I wanted to attend and most of them very extremely helpful. I guess that’s why I didn’t mind not fishing at all. My friend Kazu did fish solid days in the freshwater and added a few new species through the 4 days.
Orange County Convention Center was very well suited for sure a large meeting.
This pond at the convention center had some giant bluegills! No time to fish though…
The nearby Peabody Hotel also hosted some sessions and it was a world class hotel.
Even in the midst of such busy conference schedule, I took time to have dinner with my cousin and his family. My cousin is establishing his own dental clinic in Orlando and it was great to see him doing very well.
We went to a seafood restaurant near my hotel for some crawfish one night. MMM….
