The tide had switched as I dropped them off, and it was just 10am, so I hit the lil jetties and caught 4 Reds on the rising tide.
No big ones, but up to 15 pounds. None were small enough to keep last Thursday.
I went all weekend with "tire kicker" calls and people who thought I was a party boat, and would depart at 10am. I find all that kinda funny......
Today, I had John K. and his son aboard. His son Hayden wanted to try shark fishing. We departed right at 7am and headed out to the chum hole and behind some shrimp boats. I told John on the phone, we're working with cool water temps right now. Rather than a 83 degree ocean temp, it's been 76 on the beach.
The good thing in our favor was that I was too the boat ramp extra early. And I saw Mullet jumping right off the end of the dock this morning. So I quickly grabbed my net and easily caught at least 30 large mullet for bait.
No having to chase around looking for Pogies.
So with the chum hole shrimp boats not producing, we headed to the S.E. Hole, and fished 50 feet plus. Just drifting behind a few shrimpers, with live mullet out on corks.
We weren't there long and two takers right off the bat. The neat thing about using the live mullet is the blow up you get when the sharks strike.
We ended up with a 1/2 dozen sharks eating the live Mullet. Mostly smaller Blacktips, they asked fore sharks and I delivered.
I just can't fish for sizes, though. We gotta take what we get.
A few did super streaking runs, and a few did some jumps, which was really cool.
I think the largest was a 50 pounder. And while out there we did see Tarpon rolling, and a giant Manta Ray paid us a visit, swiming around the back of the boat. Small Bonita schools were busting glass minnows on the surface. And as we drifted, there's no lack of schools of unknown bait all over the bottom.
The wind eventually started blowing hard off the beach chopping up the water, and our shark bite shut off, even though I had a great chum slick out behind the boat. Utilizing my "CHUM CHOPPER" built into my stern platform of the boat, I chopped up a bunch of old bait from the freezer. And it worked, because 5 minutes after chumming we caught the largest Blacktip of the day.
Since they shut down on us. We ran back to the river and anchored up at the Lil' Jetties and tried for a "FALLING TIDE" Redbass out in 35 feet of water. And only came up with TOO MANY Bluefish bites, and one stingray.
All which is a "Here's yer sign" that NO reds were around on a falling tide at this spot. Nothing ventured nothing gained?
Yeah, but they bite on this spot on a rising tide. But we didn't have that luxury at the end of our day.
