Capt.PeteRowney
01-07-2007, 11:00 AM
Happy 2007 to all. The last few weeks have been thankfully busy- have to pay for those Christmas gifts sometime. Anyways, the fishing has been like the weather- hot. Yes, we're feeling the same El Nino effects as well, with above normal temps and more rain than usual. Believe me, like most of the country, I'm not complaining about our mild winter so far. The fishing as of late has been good for just about everything. Out wintertime spanish mackerel fishery is in full swing, with great catches out in the gulf and good fishing by the bridges. The fun thing about this type of fishing is the variety of finned critters that show up in the chum slick. Snappers, jacks, ladyfish, grouper, redfish, trout, cobia and sharks all wind up behind the boat at times, making for an exciting day of fishing. This kind of fun fishing is a nice break from the technical stuff and can be a big boost to the ego after getting beat up on the bonefish flats. On the topic of flats, the redfish bite still remains solid. I found a number of nice big reds tailing away on a favorite spot of mine. While these guys usually are a bit more generous than bonefish, they can be at times just as spooky and fussy. Stealth and accurate casts are the key. Speaking of bonefish, the elusive ghost has been a little tough on my customers. The wind has definitely made things hard, with most of the oceanside churned up and dirty. On the flats close to town we had a number of fish working the banks pretty good around the full moon. Most of these fish were mudding deep and tough to see if you didn't have good light. While we did find some pushing up on the flats, they simply refused our offerings. I'm blaming the full moon on that one. After a tough day bonefishing yesterday with a husband and wife, decided to hit a spot for some snapper to simply bend the rod. The wife was really unhappy (her husband neglected to tell her that they were going to bonefish) and after five hours of watching him miss opportunites, she had had enough. He told me to find some fish and make her happy. Oh boy. Anyways, this particular snapper hole occasionally has some snook in it. Sometimes they're there, sometimes they're not. A customer had dropped a small fish the day before so I was pretty confident we might get into something a little more sporting. While I was casting a rod for the wife, the husband was casually seated on the deck, drinking his beer and half-minding the rod, I noticed the line suddenly moving upcurrent. He set up on it and the fish immediately headed for the sticks. At that point, I told him he should probably stand up to fight it. The fish came firing out of the mangroves, yellow fins glowing, crossed the channel and up onto the flat, spun around and shot back into the trees with the reel screaming like a raped ape. My angler did a hell of job putting the wood the fish and kept him out of the mangroves. A few minutes later, we boated the 13 1/2 pound snook. That fish made his day and my day, but unfortunately not his wifes'. Oh well. Until next time. -Pete