7/3 - Holiday fishing

[Admin]

I took my usual crew (Gary and Jim) out for a little extended weekend action. Knowing full well it would be pretty mad out there, we left the dock at 5:30am and had our bait (Sardines) aboard by 6:15. We hit up Izor's Reef first with a number of other boats, all of which looked to be doing nothing. Jim was able to pull this nice toad though (Jim is 6'4" too!): [img]http://www.allcoastsportfishing.com/pho ... ss-med.jpg[/img] After that, we (and the other boats out there too) headed over to the Huntington Flats were everybody seemed to be. The meter was busy everywhere, but not much going on. After 3 moves (man the sand sucks that anchor in don't it?), we finally stayed on a spot. To that point, we hadn't done anything. We had a lot of bait coming back raked though, so I thought maybe the bass were gorged, or too small for these Sardines. So I started picking dead ones off the bottom of the tank and cutting off their heads up to the top and bottom fins. For additional smell, I sliced them up the belly to the tail. I hooked them just behind the top fin with a 2/0, and all of a sudden, I was pulling fish at a regular pace. If I forgot the slice, I usually didn't get bit. Also, I needed 3 ounces to the get to the bottom and stay there. Before, I only had 2 ounces, and I was not getting any action. We could see all the guys on the sporties, and every pole was straight. Man, those boats were filled to the gills. We finally left at about 2:30 to get the boat back to HH and cleaned up. Totals for the day were about 12 Sandies, 2 short Butts (on frozed squid), 2 small Sand Sharks, and a Ray. We kept the 2 Sandies for dinner, and the rest were released. Absolutely beautiful day out on the pond.

[Capt. Ed]

Nice day of fishing David. 1979 Bertram 33' FBC ALEXANDRA Port Richey, Florida HAVE YOU SIGNED UP FOR BERTRAM PRIDE '06 yet? DO IT NOW... SPACE IS LIMITED!