    
Capt. Randy
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 | | Posted on Monday, January 20, 2003 - 12:43 am: | |
Subject: Fishing Report of 1-19-03
Apalachicola, St. George Island to St. Marks, Florida -- Offshore
Debo and I got back from our vacation on the 10th of this month. We stopped to ring in the New Year with our close friends Pam and Ed Renberg in Tampa before going on down to the Keys to be totally tourist.
I’ve been knowing Ed for about 30 years now………..shoot, we used to ride dirt bikes together around Atlanta back when you couldn’t even buy a dirt bike. Ed hasn’t changed a lick. His choice of machines to ride have changed a little. Now he’s got a whole garage full of the nicest Harleys I’ve seen lately for he and his family to enjoy. And, he’s got his priorities straight too. The Escalade and new Chevy truck sit outside.
Ed and his super family and friends treated Debo and I to an OutDamnStanding New Year celebration. Keep on boogying, brother! You can’t do any better!
Thereafter, Debo and I became……….TOTALLY TOURIST!
Man, did we have a blast.
We spent 2 days about everywhere in the Keys from Islamorada on down to Key West and about two days of Key West was about all this ole’ geezer could handle. Way too much fun.
Debo and I are pretty much partial to the middle keys, so we doubled back up to Marathon to check on the availability of an offshore charter. Yep, that’s right. We wanted to go fishing, have someone else run the boat and someone else deck hand. And, we found just the outfit to do it with.
Through personal recommendation from our buddies up here and their buddies in Marathon, we hooked up with Captain Morris and his son Captain Marty Lewis running out of Key Colony Beach Marina in Marathon on the Main Attraction 1, 2 and 3. Main Attraction 1 and 2 are nice custom built 42’ Morgans run by Morris and Marty and Main Attraction 3 is a nice, super fast, custom center console of about 27’ in length run by Captain Jason Long.
I would highly recommend these boys to anyone who might be thinking of fishing in the Keys. Captain Lewis’s operation is very professional and exactly on par with our services up here in the panhandle. And they, like us, put you on fish.
Our day with Captain Marty was to be strictly catch and release with a mixture of bottom fishing and trolling. Now, bottom fishing is not really their thing though just to be nice to me they did try it once. TROLLING is their thing and they do that to perfection for sails, king mack and tuna.
The trip really was to have been catch and release as per our wishes, but the night before I got an excellent piece of pan seared, fresh, yellow fin tuna served to me in one of the fine restaurants in the area. Right off, that made for a tough day for any yellow or black fin tuna we might be encountering on our upcoming trip. I mentioned my penchant for tuna to Marty and though he said they hadn’t caught many of late, I could tell by the sparkle in his eye that my statement didn’t bode well for those noble specie.
We began our day on the water a little late due to the live bait being difficult to locate. The chilly morning ( by Keys standards, almost intolerable at 49 degrees) had chased the pilchards from their normal haunts delaying our departure to about 9:30. That was cool though, someone else was running the boat.
Beautiful, bright sunny skies and that gin clear water met us just outside the marina as we began our run offshore and Capt. Marty began dodging zillions of lobster pot buoys. Man, I thought our crab traps were thick up here. Not a drop in the bucket compared to what those boys have to contend with down there.
First we sight cast to a swirl of macks, but had no luck. We then ran to a reef to try our hand at a little bottom fishing for yellow tail and grouper, but the fish didn’t want to cooperate.
Now the boys wanted very much to put Debo and myself on some sails, so we got down to some serious slow trolling with live baits. After a while Debo hooked up on what everyone thought was a huge fish and after a whole lot of heavy duty fighting she brought a respectable king mack, foul hooked in the tail, to the boat. It has to do with fishy mechanical advantage.
As Debo was fighting the king, a hot and heavy strike came to the starboard rigger and I was in a good fight. Fun City! And guess what? It was a nice 18#
black fin tuna…………right up my alley. That bad boy came home with us and continues to be wonderful.
Another larger king picked on Debo as we trolled on in search of the elusive sails and though we didn’t have the good fortune of raising one to our baits, we thoroughly enjoyed the hunt. Marty’s dad did catch and release 2 sails with his clients that day so it was solid grins all around the dock at the end of the day.
After our return, Debo and I had the pleasure of taking our long time client Rick Benge and his buds, Tim Laychak, Gene Lenhart, Thomas Ghiney, and Ken Hart offshore on January the 15th. And, though the Keys are pretty, and their fish are tough, there’s really no place like home and the heavy duty tugs from those 11 big ole’ beautiful grouper welcomed us back home in fine style.
Take those kids fishing
&
Catch Em’ Up!
Capt. Randy |
