Windy Weather Compromise
December is known to be windy as the cold fronts push through with winds near 20 knots more often than not. Winter is here.
We had a charter scheduled on the Premium Time out of A&B Marina in Key West to head out to the Dry Tortugas for a one night trip. It was a family trip with a dad (Jeff), four kids (Greg, Cory, Nick and Shawn) and Jeff’s cousin Rich. They loved to fish and were ready for this Florida Keys adventure.
A few days before the trip, the weather began to take a turn... 20 knots of wind out of the east-noth east. Heading out to the Tortugas would be ok as we would be going down sea the whole way with the wind at our back. Fishing would have been great! Day 2 however would be the issue. Running 65-70 miles straight into a 20 knot wind and crashing into the seas that come with it would not only be extremely uncomfortable but we would only be able to move at 8 knots or so. That would make our second day of fishing more like a looooong and bumpy boat ride. The experience would not be the same. The call had to be made.
Capt. Marlin contacted the guys a couple of days before and explained the weather situation. The weekend was fishable... but only just off of Key West. The choice was to either cancel the trip or fish two full days here and forego the Dry Tortugas. They wanted to fish so the decision was made.
We had a plan to leave at 8am Saturday morning and the group showed up around 7:45 ready to go. We started off on the troll in 150-200 ft of water looking for tuna. The birds were up and there was a nice color change with lines of bay grass. We put two skipjack tunas in the boat before we decided to stop on a deep piece of bottom. The drift was started and the guys laid down strips of bonita. The bites were immediate! Vermillion and silky snapper made their way aboard and the smiles started as the fish box began to fill. Then came the big fish... blueline tilefish! We ended up with three of these, one of which was rather significant in size. Also to make it aboard were a few snowy grouper that had to be released.
After the deep ledge we were back on the troll getting a couple more skipjack tuna and a couple of blackfin tuna. Towards the end of the day we saw a pile of birds going down on the water and upon reaching the area, it turned out to be a bait ball that had 20-30 big blackfin tuna slashing through it right next to the boat. What a sight! We trolled through a few times but these fish were so keyed in on the baits they were eating that none of our baits were hit. Lines were yanked up and we started to head towards the bait to work them with jigs and try and get them to eat. Unfortunately, by the time we got there, the bait had dispersed and so did the tuna. We called it a day and headed back to the dock.
Day two: We left out at 8am and started off on the reef for a differnt type of experience. Ballyhoo came up in droves in the chum slick and so did the yellowtail. The main goal was to get the live bait. We threw the net a few times and loaded up the live well before heading offshore. After a short troll that was a bit quiet, we stopped on another deep piece of bottom. The snapper were there again and ready to eat. After a few were caught, we were going to get back on the troll before heading to the reef. As one of the guys was reeling up a thick slab of bonita that was attached to a 12 oz weight he got bit! Drag screamed out and the fight was on... After 10- 15 minutes of battle the fish came up. It was a big fat blackfin tuna! What had happened was that this fish saw what was left of the slab of bonita ( a long piece of shiny skin) shooting rapidly through the water and it attacked it! This is about what a vertical jig would look like. A fantastic bonus fish.
Once we arrived on the reef we immediately started putting yellowtail snapper in the box. More live ballyhoo were caught and we laid one out on a wire rig. A big cero mackerel snapped it up. We drifted some fresh cut ballyhoo back in the slick and ended up with couple of just legal mutton snapper and a large mangrove snapper.
Before ending the day we decided to bring the rest of our live baits out to a wreck. Once arriving at the wreck we put our live ballyhoo to work down on the bottom. They were hit right away but due to the 2 knot current it was tough to make a connection. After a few missed fish, the code was cracked and fish started getting hooked! Sharks... three foot long, Atlantic sharp nose to be exact.
Then Rich hooked up. This fish was acting different than all the others because it was a nice-sized mutton snapper! When this fish hit the deck, three or four of our ballyhoo came out of his mouth. We found the fish we had missed earlier! We used up the last of the live baits and headed back to the dock. The guys had all of their fish cooked at the Boathouse which is just behind the boat and all in all they had a great time.
Due to weather we were forced to change our plans but was it really such a compromise? We were able to experience some of the great fishing that the Florida Keys has to offer while the winds were up and conditions were not ideal. This trip could have been cancelled but instead we made the best of it and had a fantastic two days on the water. Making lemonade out of lemons.
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