Healthy Grin Sport Fishing

I had the pleasure of fishing on the Special Kate this morning with the Southalls. It was a beautiful morning and that is all we fished. We had Hunter and 3 old retired guys. It was a beautiful ride. It looked very fishy with birds and busting bonito. The bite was slow. We got a single yellowfin then held onto one of a pair of bites. That was it. Charles then “suggested” that Hunter put out a Drone spoon behind a planer. As soon as he did that, bedlam happened. Poor Hunter, he will now hear for the rest of his life, or at least the rest of ours, “I told you to put that spoon out. You should listen to old guys. We know stuff.” We got covered up by a nice class of tuna. One bit the teaser in an impressive bite. Eight others bit hooked baits. Now we have 3 old retired guys and Hunter with 8 screaming tuna. We had 74-year-old Leon cranking and gaffing tuna. No rest for anyone. Crossed lines, tunas sliding around the deck, beating us with their tails, the deck totally covered in blood with us sliding around in it while fighting tuna, while getting beat by tuna tails. It looked like a scene from a horror film. I have no idea how, but we landed 7 of those 8 tuna. I told Charles that we are too old for this. He said, “No, you are not”. It took a bit of time to get things back in some order and get baits back out. Immediately, more explosions. We desperately go for the rods not holding onto tuna yet to get those baits out of the water. We are hanging onto our limit plus one. The hook pulled on one so “just” our limit. I’m fighting the last of our now triple hook-up and the leader breaks just as Hunter gaffs the fish. We don’t dare put out any more baits, us old guys are tired (so was Hunter). We were running back in with a limit of nice yellowfin by 11:30 in the morning.

Rough ride out on the Special Kate this morning with Charles Southall and Hunter Southall . Ride back was about the same. 6 yellowfin tuna, 7 or 8 dolphin and a bird. The bird was released.

I went out with Stan Simmerman this morning after cobia, in the wind and rain. We caught 3 little cobia. Each was smaller than the one before. Before it got too embarrassing, we came in for lunch. Each fish was released with a tag.

I took Stan Simmerman and David Brabrand out after sheepshead this morning. We caught 2 citation-sized sheep to about 11 pounds. We also placed tags in 13 tautog (on Friday the 13th). We caught a 14th tog that was already tagged. Many impressive toadfish were also caught but nobody wanted their photo taken with a toad.

I had a decent morning tagging and releasing tautog at York Spit Reef. I did not catch any sheepshead or drum.

I went out with Stan Simmerman to tag some preseason cobia. It was not hot and heavy, but we managed to get 2 tags out. It was a pretty day on the bay.

I spent the past two mornings mostly tagging and releasing tautog. Some other fishes were also caught.

I ran out with Stan Simmerman this morning for the sunrise sheepshead bite. The sheep slept in. We tagged and released 22 tautog. One, we recaptured after tagging it 30 minutes prior. We were back home in time to get cleaned up for Mothers Day Lunch.