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+--- Thread: It's Been A Long Slow Summer (/showthread.php?tid=285878)
It's Been A Long Slow Summer - KnotNancy - 10-17-2006
It's been quite a while since my last report. I'm beginning to come out of the summer doldrums period and I'm starting to get booked up in the January through May time frame in 2007. This summer period has seen some very slow fishing. The few trips I have done have been real struggles to catch a few fish out on the reef.
I had a half day teaching trip with Bill and Jackie Kasselbaum. They learned where and how to catch bait at the various times of the year. We loaded the livewell full of pilchards, herring, and small bluerunners. Next it was how to rig their rods and reels and some basic knots to tie double lines, mono and wire leaders. We put out our flat lines, downrigger baits, and kite baits. Our drift started in 90 feet and with a west wind, we drifted out to 300 feet. The end result was no runs, no hits, and no errors. Next, we did some running and gunning in search of some dolphin. We found lots of floating wood and no dolphin. Even the birds were absent. We dropped jigs for wahoo with no results. The final move of the trip was slow trolling a weedline and debris that we found at the color change in 350 feet. The long and short of it was we didn't even have a bait get nervous.
My next trip was with Scott Moreland and his business associates Steve and Rich. Once again bait was a snap and offshore we went into a wind from the NE/ENE @ 18 - 21 knots. We put out herring on the flatlines and downrigger. Two goggle eyes were flown from the kite. A sea anchor was deployed to slow down our drift. The color change was in 160 feet on our first drift. By the second drift it had moved out to 190 feet. The final drift before coming in to some calmer water saw the color change out at 210 feet. Final results on that part of the trip was a goggle eye cut in half behind the bridle and we saw a large school of mullet in 210 feet. We moved inshore for calmer water so one of the angler's stomach could settle down. We slow trolled a goggle eye and caught and released a barracuda. Next, we had a tarpon roll on the second bait and move on. We saw a school of finger mullet swimming happily along and not being bother by any predators. That's the way our morning ended. Another day of struggling.
Our most productive day was when we did some deep dropping on various wrecks in the 115 - 220 foot range. The lane and vermillion snapper cooperated on most every drop. On one of the wrecks, we were hooking large bluerunners and before we could get them up, the barracudas were chopping them in half as well as cutting off our dropper rigs.
As you can see, the few trips I've done for the most part have been a struggle. The good news is that it shouldn't be long before the fishing picks up and the results will be better for reef fishing. Kings, sailfish, and mackerel are not to far off. The tarpon should start to settle into their winter time pattern at some point in December. Fishing will improve and I'll be ready.
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