My plan was to go tripletail fishing out of the Port on Sunday. Unfortunately none of my fishing buddies could make it. Not knowing the new PC ramp parking situation, I did not want to launch solo and block up a ramp while I parked the truck and trailer. So I headed down south on a solo mission with big linesiders as my new target. The water was only 59 degrees at sunrise. Not exactly ideal temps for snook to say the least. I was only a few casts in when a behemoth snook rolled on my surface bait like a tarpon with her entire back coming out of the water. I managed to turn her away from the dock as she angrily exploded out of the water. With the trolling motor maxed out, I attempt to pull her from the structure with my Stradic 5000(30lb braid) and Star Plasma (10-17lb) combo. Unfortunately 12lbs of drag was not enough to stop her from running to an oyster bar forty feet away. I gambled and clamped my hand on the spool. It was the wrong decision, the hook pulled. I eased the boat back into position and calmed myself as I cast back to the dock. Twitch, twitch, phooomp! A solid but much smaller snook inhaled the bait. I powered her away from the dock and then backed off the drag as I used the trolling motor to fight her in open water. The hook fell out of the snook's mouth as I pulled her into the boat. She taped out at 31 3/4" and just shy of 12lbs on the boga. The next few casts resulted in a 10 lb jack and some multilple impressive blow up/short hits by some large snook tight to structure... and I wasn't even to "the dock" yet. Just as I get to "the dock", the homeowner comes strolling out with rod in hand and casts out to open water, happily catching little jacks and ladyfish (having no idea he spooked a bunch of large snook away from his dock). I released one more snook before the boats of weekend warriors started moving in. I should have stuck with the plan as it wasn't even 9:00am and the water was warming with the sun, but I got greedy. I ran to Sebastian inlet and out in hopes of adding tripletail and cobia to the box. The ocean temp was only 65 degrees and a little too sloppy for me at two miles out, so I headed for the house.

Sorry for the crappy pic, it's tough to get a nice "on the water" shot when you're fishing solo.