KW reef / bar 4/2

[NauticalWheeler]

First day on the water in KW this year. Beautiful day...seas flat. Went out a little past Western Dry Rocks looking for yellowtail. Scouted around the reef and bar, and didn't mark any fish...at least no obvious schools. Meanwhile, saw some nice weed lines, with fish busting... false albacore/bonito and ceros mainly. We chased those around for a while and caught this nice cero probably at least 5 lb and a nice flag yellowtail under the weeds on a spoon near the surface. Went out scouting along the bar, didn't mark any fish out there but a school of chubs found us, so I figured since there was some life I'd drop anchor and chum. Caught a few nice yellowtails...they were way back in the slick and we never saw them in the slick. My wife caught this large remora that came into the slick...was probably 10 lb or more and around 3 ft long.

We had a couple of boat issues though - the Humminbird screen backlight went bad, and the IPilot trolling motor got stuck on and we couldn't shut it off without unscrewing the lead from the fuse. Hopefully reverting to the old head will fix it... VHF also not working...have to rely on a hand held unit for now. Gotta love boats.

[Tripleclean]

Yep they are ugly.

[Got TA Go]

Nice job!

Rob

[reeladventures]

Nice Cero!

[C-HAWK]

Nice. Some of the biggest flags Ive caught were mixing it up with yellow jacks and macks on grass off the reef.

[daeuco]

Boat.

Break
Out
Another
Thousand (dollars)

[NauticalWheeler]

Thanks guys. Yeah that big yellowtail surprised me, being right up on the surface like that. I guess it was eating whatever goodies it wanted off of the weeds.

After that trip I was in bed on Tuesday with a stomach bug. We went out Wednesday and Thursday, inshore due to wind...fished the NW Channel and the channels leading into Boca Grande channel...caught lots of snappers, a few small groupers, and some nice jacks. My wife caught a mutton that was around 22" along the edge of the NW Channel. She also caught 2-3 new species (for us) (didn't take pics, but I think one was a sheepshead).

She also lost a Mystery Fish that threw the hook after half spooling her - we were fishing the channel leading out into Boca Grande. No damage to the line would seem to rule out sharks or big cudas, and it didn't jump so I'm thinking it wasn't a tarpon. Could have foul hooked a shark or ray I guess, or maybe it was a really big jack, I don't know...

The boat is all fixed - we replaced the power module in the trolling motor after Minn Kota overnighted us the new board. The VHF just had a loose connection on the fuse, and the Humminbird magically got better somehow...possible card seating issue there (even though I had already tried re-seating the cards before).

I spent yesterday in the ER after my stomach bug came back for an encore... hopefully I have the right meds to kick its butt now. Hoping the wind settles down just a bit...we'll probably get out tomorrow for some backcountry / inshore fishing.

[out of the blue]

love the fact u all wearing the vests!!!

[BocaBoca]

Thanks for the post and pix. Nature is beautiful; even the Remora. Good design for a shoe sole!