Rough day on the water

Capt. John Guy, owner of Fisherman's Headquarters on First Street, said it best: "We just come out here to fish. We're not on the water everyday. Sometimes, we don't catch anything."

Not that's fishing. You can't always be on a charter with a captain who is almost certain about the recent hot spot beucase he or she has just fishing the hole a day prior. We would have to work for every fish.

Last Sunday, April 20, Capt. John took myself and two other men about 10 miles offshore to target kingfish. The kings had apparently moved away during a recent cold front, but after three straight days of warm temperatures, we figured they might be back around.

In about 50 feet of water, the kings did not show. We threw Rapala lures and scored with a couple bonito, which we could see slicing through the water from a distance, possibly smelling our chum combination of jack mackerel, and chunks of Berkley Gulp baits.

Earlier, we had a tough time getting baits on the flats and in the passes. Finally, though, we went about 5 miles offshore near a marker and used a Capt. Jon Guy blue runner rig, each hooked tipped with a piece of shrimp, to boat about 12 blue runners.
The blue runners, of course, did not produce any kingfish. Instead, we anchored over a bait show and a hard bottom in 45 feet of water. We landed about five undersized red grouper and about eight grunts. The grunts were caught on a jig/shrimp combination.

Just before dark, we motored to the Skyway to take our shots at some mangrove snapper over the rubble under the Skyway. With the light of a full moon lighting up the bay, our pole bents almost nonstop - because of snags.

The mangrove snapper, to our surprise, were not biting.

So we called it a night, content with just being out on the water.

It certainly was a tough day of fishing.