pompano

Carter is proud of his big pompano, just one of the many fish caught recently with Capt. Mark Wright.

We had an interesting week as we fished offshore on Wednesday then did a seminar Wednesday evening at Boaters Exchange. Caught a few fish with top-water Tony on Thursday and whacked the juvenile seatrout Saturday morning!

Here’s how it went… Capt. Cliff Hodges invited me along on a search and destroy mission launching from Port Canaveral. While we hoped for a chance at cobia and free swimming tripletail, our target was bottom fish for a few dinners. While we never saw a cobia or anything likely to hold a cobia we did see patches and patches of seagrass. Unfortunately, heavy cloud cover and choppy seas made sight-fishing all but impossible, so bottom fishing we went!

It took a few attempts, but Cliff found a fantastic piece of structure which held a mixed bag of American red snapper, lane snapper, mutton snapper, triggerfish and the Mother Lode of sheepshead. We kept a handful of fish for our dinners with most of the fish returned.

Thursday morning Tony and I hit the central region of the Mosquito Lagoon. Both of us were weary and tired; me from my marathon day on Wednesday and Tony from just returning home from a trip to the Big Apple where he and friends rung in the New Year.

True to form, Tony fished his butt off tossing both top-water plugs (to no avail) and Z-Man soft plastics which caught a few trout and a mid-slot redfish. Our plans of fishing again on Friday took an abrupt turn as Tony became feverish and pale. Looks like a few days nursing the Flu for Tony and I hope I don’t catch it!

Saturday morning I filled in for Capt. Carver who is having a mechanical issue with his tow vehicle. The father and son team turned into father and both sons. Jason, Carter and Parker spent the morning catching lots of schoolie trout with a few mangrove snapper, sailors’ choice and ladyfish mixed in. The best catch of the day was Carter’s pompano, the only fish to slip a drag all morning!

These guys did a great job using live shrimp under popping floats and I think they had almost as much fun as I did!