Last minute decided to take advantage of the weather and try an offshore day.  Just me and Bob Q. hit Venice inlet about 7am and caught a couple dozen pinnies and blue runners, then headed to M16 where we heard the kings were congregated.  Put out a #3 planer with a yellow-green king spoon and a stretch 30.  King spoon got hit immediately and a small king came aboard with little fanfare (and all the hardware).  Next hour picked up a bunch of lizard fish, a red grouper, and big blue runners on that spoon.  The stretch 30 only was hit one time and a nice spanish came aboard.  Next stop was 65 feet  for some bottom fishing.  Caught some small red grouper and some key westers and porgies, but no mangroves.  Ran out another 6 miles into 75 feet and ran into some great action.  Quite a few cutoffs with our light outfits, but managed a nice kingfish and a double header with nice gags (to throw back!).  That ledge is now named twingag ledge.

Couldn’t make it out last weekend for unnamed reasons…  Had filled the well with pins Saturday evening and they were begging to be traded in for larger models, so put together a trip for Thursday even though the forecast was iffy.  The plan was to try and work a 4 degree temp break that looked real nice at about 55 miles for BFT or wahoo.   Ran out the Venice jetties at 6:30am and avoided the crabtrap buoys to hit our decision point at D9 at about 7:45am.  Running parallel to the 3-4ft. SE swells wasn’t bad at all.  Picked up a couple AJ’s right off the bat and had a nice cobia follow a bait back to the boat, but he wouldn’t eat.  The crew was game to try another 25 miles out so we started, but only a few miles later decided it was better to leave it for another day.  The tops were getting blown off the swells and the old, wimpy capt. wasn’t that optimistic about a long run back in deteriorating weather.  We turned south  and ran a few miles when we marked a promising show on the sonar, so turned back and picked up 4 nice 30″ RG’s, some porgies and triggers.  That spot will get named…  Stopped at one more spot on the way in to finish the day.  The crew seemed happy and we’ll eat fresh fish.

With everyone clamoring about the slick sea conditions and my wife complaining that the family hadn’t been fishing in awhile, we were planning on an early trip Saturday.  Unfortunately the LOW tide Saturday morning left us no water to get out to the ICW, so we slept in and debated over late coffee whether to even go or not.  We decided to try it, but by the time we fueled up and caught a few pinfish outside the jetties, it was NOON.  Good 2 ft. swells out of the SE, but nothing too bad.  We ran over some interesting bottom in 85′ on way out and turned on it to find a S-load of small AJ’s and a lone short RG.  Drift was pretty fast.  We stopped at the first spot in 105′, but it didn’t produce.  By now it was 2:00 and nothing in the box.  D9 was 5 miles north, so we headed there to hopefully pick up a couple AJ’s.  I rigged up a heavy spinner for my wife and we dropped down a frisky pinfish.  Before I even handed her the rod, it came tight.  Game on!  She did a good job with the fish, and we were even more excited when it turned out to be a 40lb. cobia.

Unfortunately 3 or 4 more drifts didn’t produce any AJ’s and we had to run in.  Before we left, though, we saw what were probably those huge AJ’s blasting and corraling bait on the surface!  What an amazing sight!  I did have a blue runner on a freeline and thought maybe I’d get lucky with that, but NOPE!

All in all, a good trip.  That ONE fish can make the day…

The plan was to fuel up, bait up, and get out to 50 miles or so.  6:30 at the fuel dock, 30 pinfish by 7:15, then out to D9 for a few drifts.  Had a new-to-gulf fisherman with us from the Northwest, and he was first to hook up to a decent AJ.  He didn’t say much during the fight (as we were snickering), but did a great job and we boated a nice fish.  My shrimp on the BG20 was inhaled and a few minutes later I boated the top-half of a bonito.  A cuda got the other half, but we turned that half-bonito into – let’s see – a porgy, a grunt, 2 lane snapper, a nice mangrove, and a couple RG’s after the day was done.  Not bad for recycling efforts.

After another AJ in the box, we decided to work some hard bottom a few miles away.  Picked up just a few fish there.  As the plan was deep, we ran out to the Pipe and did a couple drifts, without much action, so decided to make the final run out and maybe troll a bit and try to find a new honey hole.  There were a couple shows that we turned around on during the last run out, but they didn’t produce as expected, and we had wasted quite a bit of time looking.  I did have 1 spot of hard bottom I’d worked awhile back in 150ft. so we made that our last resort.  Action was pretty good there and we boated 2 or 3 more, including the Firetruck, and we had to call it quits without even a trolling plug hitting the water.

In hindsight, we should have shot out deep and worked our way back, with the winter days being so short.  Or make it an overnighter!  Next time.

BTW, our fisherman from the Northwest now knows to “REEL, REEL, REEL” to turn the grouper and not to jerk that circle hook until you’ve got real weight on the line.  He was even predicting well whether his next RG would be over twenty or under twenty after hookup!  Good job John!