More Bluefish, trout and cobia.
We had such a good time yesterday that we decided to do it again. I was hoping the whitebait was still bunch up. They where not and I had to through the net about 10 times to get about 50 baits. The whitebait was still in the same area around the turn marker in the Bayport channel, but they where scattered around due to the birds. Also to note the whitebait was thick in Centipede bay. While catching whitebait a small cobia was chasing the bait around the boat. This kept the bait at a distance from the boat. So the only solution I could find was to toss out a bait with a hook.
While the cobia was short, it did put up a nice fight and once released it left the area.
Once we had the whitebait we ran over to the the Hernando Beach channel and started at marker 5. We used 20# fluorocarbon leader, which proves to be inadequate for the teeth of a blue fish. We lost 4 hook within the first 5 minutes. So I switched out the leaders to 30# which cut done on the hook loses. We caught about 10 bluefish and decided to move and look for some trout. If you want bluefish the cut between markers 5 and 7, I caught them there for the last week. The next couple of cuts we caught 4 trout, but none as big as yesterdays, but all in the 20 inch range. We also picked up an assortment of jacks, lady-fish, blue-runners and a bonnet-head shark and a few small grouper. It rained on and off most of the day, so we did not get many pictures
Next stop was Centipede bay. We started in the back and saw a few fish cruising the rocky area. Tossed out some whitebait and the redfish swam right by it. This was a bit odd, but I think I figured out why a redfish would pass up a whitebait. A few minutes later we heard a crash in the water about 100 yards behind the boat. As it turns out is was a pelican diving on a big school of whitebait. So my guess is the redfish that I saw where coming back from dinner, I though I heard one of them say "I can't eat another bite". We did manage to get a a little 18 inch redfish to bite and he looked like he just got back from an all you can eat buffet.
Next week we plan to head out to some shallow rocks for inshore grouper fishing.
Good Luck
Zippyjr
Tide : .02 11:32am Rising
Water Clarity : clear
Moon Phase: 13% full
Temp: 92F
Water Temp : 84F
Wind: 5 mph NE - 10 mph W
Bait: Whitebait
Results: Trout, bluefish, jacks, cobia, bonnet head shark, ladyfish, rat red, grouper.