Headed out to try sheep and then grunts. Picked up 6 dozen shrimp and brought only light spinning rods. Dropping 1/2 shrimp near pilings was slow, with mostly trash fish. I got a braid loop on my reel, that had jig on, cast it out away from bridge to clear ... upon bare jighead splashing drag starts screaming. Bluefish to the boat ... hmm this is more fun than picking through little trash fish. Seeing the nonstop action and fish going into the box ... my friend also switched to a spoon. We had non-stop action for an hour on Spanish and Blues, losing many spoons and jigs in the process.
We decided to head offshore and look for new spots. Bait schools were everywhere, but seemed to have no predators lurking. With little to show for scouting efforts, we headed to a consistent spot on public reef. Chum block went down on downrigger and it was game on. Our original focus of grunts was distracted by some nice surprise catches. Flounder, sheepshead, short yellow tail snapper, short mangrove snapper, and of course plenty of short red grouper. The water was super clear and we could see a few kings working bait in the chum slick. We were not prepared for kings and lost the two that were hooked, due to circle hooks pulling out boat side after extended fights on inshore rods. Should have brought the king rods and gaff
... The big gags also became a drain on our limited flat line live bait supply. My friend had to be back to pick up his daughter at 3, so it was a short day but a great variety of action.
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Originally Posted by mnhunter
