FPI mutton and dinosaur..

robalorog

My sons had a baseball game this morning so afterwards I asked them if they wanted to go fishing for a few hours and they all started jumping up and down saying yes, so I loaded the boat and broke the inlet by the crack of 2pm. My normal crew of 3 sons, Stephen, Roger, Shane and my wife Sunshine(yes that is her real name). Checked the 10a bouy for bait and managed 2 goggle eyes mixed in with all the horn bellys. Got out to 50' and had to fight off all the sharks on the bottom. Finally Sunshine lands a nice 17" mutton. A few drifts later I pickup a fish that looks like a triple tail but is very slimy and feels like an eel. (FISH ID ANYONE) Next drift I pickup a mutton that is exactly 16 1/8". Even though he was big enough he is too small to chance. Once those fish are on ice and stiffen he will probably be under 16" Plus it feels like taking a fish on his 18th birthday(barely legal). By this time it was 5 or 5:30 and there were some big storms brewin out of the west. We were trying to see where they were movin and debated weather to return or hang a little longer. There is a few pics the Roger took and you can see the storms in the background. After a while we decided it is probably time to head in before we get hammered by the storms. My flatline with the goggle eye then starts to take off. This thing started pulling like a train. It hit the biggest setup (penn torque300/20-50lb ugly stick) I had out so I was prepared for the battle. 15 mins later it is finally getting close and I could see him in a death spin like tunas do but he was upside down so I still had no clue what he was. I told my wife to grab the net because I didnt want to gaff it but the head would not fit in the net. Grabbed both hands on his mouth and pulled him in. Looks to be a jack but not sure what kind(any help). By this time the storms were almost on top of us. I started to feel that cool breeze and knew we were in trouble being 8 miles out. I get the fish back in the water and he is not looking too good. My dilema. Do I head in or stick it out and try to get this amazingly large fish (49"long)back upto speed. Normally I wouldn't consider abandoning the fish but I had a 5,6 and 7 year old aboard. I say we got to try and revive it. I slowly trolled him around for about 20 mins and he wasn't moving at all. The rain was starting to hit us when I decided to call it quits. I felt pretty crappy that I couldn't do anything for him. It felt like my dog just ran away or something. at least I tried and some sharks will be eating well. Back to the storms. This thing looked to be from west palm to just north of Fort Pierce. Storm got on us quick within the 20 mins I had my head hanging over the side of the boat with the fish. Got the kids all bundled up by my feet behind the console so they wont get pounded by the rain then I gunned it. Suprisingly the seas were not turning at all. I usually cant go wot during a storm. It was only a hard drizzle because we were at the front of the storm but when you are doing 40mph it really stings. I was just waiting for it to really open up but I see the storm clouds start to part right in the direction we were heading. Sure enough the rain weather stayed 1/4 mile to the north and 1/4 mile to the south. only got the drizzle for about 5 mins. When we got to the inlet I started to explain to my boys about karma. I told them that since we tried to save the fish that the fishing gods parted the storm for us. Karma or luck, call it what you want but I was relieved to be out of it. Great couple hours on the water with my family. When coming through the inlet we almost had a spotted eagle ray jump in the boat. He was the size of my trucks hood. My son Roger was on the camera today. He is only 6 but loves to take pictures.

GTSR

Bottom pics are of an African Pompano, Thats a great catch by anyones imagination.

Legal size is 24, so it would have been VERY legal to keep...:hail:hail

robalorog

GTSR wrote: »

Bottom pics are of an African Pompano, Thats a great catch by anyones imagination.

Legal size is 24, so it would have been VERY legal to keep...:hail:hail

I thought pompano at first but the pic in my book only has florida pompano. I should get a book with more fish. I couldn't imagine they would be that great tasting at that size.

PaulBoat

Nice fun day with the family. Great pomp!

Sent from my Droid

SFCarl

Thats a giant African Pompano. Great eats when eaten fresh.. does not freeze well. Even though he didn't look good when you released him, its likely he came to life shorty after release. Great catch. Some african Pompanos dont have the long hairs on their fins like their supposed to.

fishknut

Great job on the AP, make sure you look up AFRICAN pompano, not just pompano like we catch in the river every winter. Thats a stud, congrats on a great day with the family.

Go Mongo

Great report. Great looking family too.
Congrats on the AP. Have not seen one in a long time.

e-money

Awesome!

CountryBumpkin

Very nice African Pompano.

The fish you asked for ID of is a Soapfish. The slime will lather on your hands if you add a little water and rub them.

Do not put them in a live well, or rinse your hands off in the live well after handling them. The slime will kill all of your
live bait in the live well.

testerman28

nice trip!

PIERCINLIPS

Beautiful African, great report.

CRose12

Awesome pomp!! Nice report! Is that boat youre on a Parker?

Machine Head

Huge African great job.
I ran north of that storm up to Vero and missed the whole thing.
Looked like it was going to blow hard but never did.

Fi$h2nguyen

Great report and story!

cloudman

good karma goes a long way.

robalorog

CRose12 wrote: »

Awesome pomp!! Nice report! Is that boat youre on a Parker?

It is a Rambo27.

Alwaysforward

:hairraiser WOW... What a catch and report... Thanks for sharing...

skinneej

robalorog wrote: »

I couldn't imagine they would be that great tasting at that size.

And you would be wrong [:)]

maddoxrj

They are indeed very good to eat at that or any other size.

mandaferret

Top is soapfish, relative of grouper. Then as others said African Pompano. Sure missed out on eating it. Only the young ones have the long streamers.

Rare

WOW! That is one hell of a A. pomp!

Derek Arsua

I don't even know what to say!! It's too bad it didn't make it but you should have eat it

robalorog

I searched a few forums and everyone that ate A. Pomp said it was great. Thanks for the soap fish ID. I should of taken a better pic to show as to why I thought it looked a little like a tripletail. Any guesses as to the weight on a 45" fork on an A Pompano? Says state record is 50lb 8oz. This guy felt very much like the weight of a bag of thinset to me.

B.Wilmot

Check out a iPhone app called fish rules its great. Shows all the limits Shows markings a real pic too you are also able to log your catches with pics and gps points. . Great app I use it all the time.

robalorog

B.Wilmot wrote: »

Check out a iPhone app called fish rules its great. Shows all the limits Shows markings a real pic too you are also able to log your catches with pics and gps points. . Great app I use it all the time.

I gotta check that out.

sebastianshine

got this one back in June They are kind of like dinosaurs, they have a different anatomy than any other fish I have cleaned. They taste better than good.