Scott's fishing report from yesterday.
I wanted to get up at 6:00 this morning and go out but hit snooze and opted for more sleep. Did small projects around the condo all day. Meg, Meredith, Amy and I went out this evening. SE wind, maybe 15 and the bay was a little choppy but doable in the Mako. First stop was the pipe. Had a nice sized skip jack on a Norton sand eel - pumpkin seed with chartreuse tail. It made several acrobatic moves and spit the hook. Nothing else in the drift so we headed for St Joe shoreline. With my heavy draft it works well for me with this wind. I can trim the motor up and idle into the shallows, then let the winds blow me back out. We saw lots of activity between Paul's Mott and Tommy Martin's(posthumously named for a long time owner of 501 who always brought back fish). Very heavy concentration of birds and lots of splashing from something in the water. And this was in a very large area. My anticipation was high. We drifted for a short time when Meg noticed three large cow nose rays swimming off the bow of the boat. When we looked around closely they were everywhere. I did not think much of it, threw out my norton sand eel and within 10 seconds the rod was bent over with a very strong and steady pull that was stripping line. It was moving too slow to be a fin fish. I was fairly certain I had hooked a ray. After a 20 minute battle my suspicions were confirmed. I had foul hooked it under its right wing. We netted it, carefully removed the hook while keeping the tail and barb immobilized (with a tight grip). The ray was probably 2 1/2 feet across. I am assuming it was a she because she was very thick and heavy. Maybe pregnant. I think I have heard of them going through a spawning cycle. That is the only reason I can think of that they were so thick in there along the shore. Probably a thousand of them in there. It was impressive. After returning the ray to the bay to live another day, we moved to the point where Long Reef comes off St Joe and goes under water. This area is marked by the white pipe nautical cross. We fished for another 20 minutes before heading in and only brought to the boat one undersized trout. There was more activity there than the numbers show but such is fishing. We saw a beautiful sunset as we motored back toward Kontiki. That in itself made it all worthwhile.
I wanted to get up at 6:00 this morning and go out but hit snooze and opted for more sleep. Did small projects around the condo all day. Meg, Meredith, Amy and I went out this evening. SE wind, maybe 15 and the bay was a little choppy but doable in the Mako. First stop was the pipe. Had a nice sized skip jack on a Norton sand eel - pumpkin seed with chartreuse tail. It made several acrobatic moves and spit the hook. Nothing else in the drift so we headed for St Joe shoreline. With my heavy draft it works well for me with this wind. I can trim the motor up and idle into the shallows, then let the winds blow me back out. We saw lots of activity between Paul's Mott and Tommy Martin's(posthumously named for a long time owner of 501 who always brought back fish). Very heavy concentration of birds and lots of splashing from something in the water. And this was in a very large area. My anticipation was high. We drifted for a short time when Meg noticed three large cow nose rays swimming off the bow of the boat. When we looked around closely they were everywhere. I did not think much of it, threw out my norton sand eel and within 10 seconds the rod was bent over with a very strong and steady pull that was stripping line. It was moving too slow to be a fin fish. I was fairly certain I had hooked a ray. After a 20 minute battle my suspicions were confirmed. I had foul hooked it under its right wing. We netted it, carefully removed the hook while keeping the tail and barb immobilized (with a tight grip). The ray was probably 2 1/2 feet across. I am assuming it was a she because she was very thick and heavy. Maybe pregnant. I think I have heard of them going through a spawning cycle. That is the only reason I can think of that they were so thick in there along the shore. Probably a thousand of them in there. It was impressive. After returning the ray to the bay to live another day, we moved to the point where Long Reef comes off St Joe and goes under water. This area is marked by the white pipe nautical cross. We fished for another 20 minutes before heading in and only brought to the boat one undersized trout. There was more activity there than the numbers show but such is fishing. We saw a beautiful sunset as we motored back toward Kontiki. That in itself made it all worthwhile.
posted by Kontiki at 11:25 AM
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