A successful final day of the season.

Paragon1

After dealing with my bait spot being overrun with seabass thiseaving us with less than optimal amounts of pinfish we pressed out to the Melbourne bar. My antenna mount snapped enroute so between that and the low bait situation I had that ominous feeling...

Fortunately my fears were negated 25min into our first drift. 20lber in the box, but it was another 2hrs until we got the next. Both were caught well off the reefs due to the season's pressure. Easy ride back, home and cleaned up before the weather. That was a helluva storm this afternoon. Anyway, we pulled our limit each run. Average weight was 19lbs, largest was 28. The boat's being out away for a while, figured I'd leave some fish for everyone else.




Oh yeah, lots of Mahi spotted in 120 just west of the shrimp boat wreck.
Cheers!

bighardey

super job as always and appreciate the intel on 120 shrimp boat Mahi's, went out there today brother!!!

Paragon1

Awesome, hope you got some!

SouthJetty

Nice slobs!

J-Sea

**** that's an impressive average - congrats! We did 7 days and 7 limits but the avg was maybe 11#.

cflcycleparts

Boom nice work, 28lbs thats a hoss!

Paragon1

Thanks. We were fishing big baits to help keep the smaller ones from showing too much interest. Released a few in the 8-10 lb range, resulted in a slow, but worthwhile fishing.

straycat

Great trips,
nice average,
Did the survey guys get this info from you on the ramps?

Where you get the pin fish, river seems devoid of them now?

Paragon1

I found a spot a few miles north of Sebastian along the beach. But as I mentioned I think all the seabass kicked them out. There were lots of spot tail grunts there as well, about 5in ones. Good bait if you prep them right.

straycat

Whats the secret on prepping these grunts?

Paragon1

I use two techniques. If the sharks aren't around I'll cut the dorsal off along its base and continue the cut through the bottom of the tail. If the sharks are more prevalent I'll just put a fillet like slice on one side ensuring I don't hit the organ cavity. Since the grunts are a little less active this makes them more "panicked" for lack of better words. Do they last as long? No, but I've found if you're in the right spot you don't need to worry about it. We did a comparison, the non-prepped ones were always the last to get hit, if at all. But who knows, fish are moody.

straycat

great tips!