Striper Talk Striped Bass Fishing, Surfcasting, Boating

One thing I can say is WOW, they have a wide variety of fish to catch. I wish we caught more of them but maybe I'll have another chance someday. Arrived in Stuart Friday afternoon,met my friend Paul's nephew at his shop then gassed up the boat and went to Wahoo's on the water for dinner and eye candy( ;) ) . Sat. slept late headed out to inlet got a few live baits but the water was rolling ruff so headed back in for a swim, and saw a few mannatees. That night before sunset I hooked on a few of those leftover sardines , cast them out from the boat right at his dock on the river and soon I had on my first Florida fish, a Jack Crevalle about 5 -6lbs . Schoolie Monster, I see what you mean about them and I was glad I got a chance to fight one also. Then I lost a bait but soon I pulled in a flounder about 3-4 lbs which was very rare for that far up the Okechobee waterway.
Sunday up at 4am and ready to go at 5. Seas were still very ruff but we figured Sailfish would be liking the ruff water so we set out trolling 5 lines only to see the boat behind us hook up to our sail :( we worked hard but had nothing all day no kings, no dolphinfish even. Oh well, that's why it's called fishing and not catching. Next day I took more Bonine seasick pills but it was flat out there, turned out i wouldn't have needed it but better safe than sorry. It took a while to gather up the live bait we would need but as soon as the boat was anchored over the reef John was into a big fish which came unbuttoned. I immediately was hooked up to a big fish once my live greenie made it down past the marauding cudas circling the boat. I fought a 50 lb amberjack on a 30lb setup for quite a while but I winched him up after his 4th run. Got 2 pics on the reg camera so once the film is developed I will post it for ya. Then I witnessed a 350 lb nurse shark pulled from the deep by Johnny and a cobia followed it up so I scrambled to try to get him to take a bait while John struggled with his monster. As if that didn't punish his back enough a while later he pulls up another , a little smaller. Then he gets a cuda and I do also. Finally he latches on to a nice mealsize yellowtail snapper only to have it fall off the hook as he tried to lift it to the boat and the cudas ate well. The bite slowed after awhile and I only got snappers taking me into the wreck :(
We were fishing on the end of a 600' wreck in 80' of water 7 miles offshore. We were definately in the right spot as sardines were constantly busting around us all day and porpoises swam by and flying fish , there must have been millions of fish around there and we had the place to ourselves since it was Monday :D

Now we headed to the Keys and did our tarpon fishing on Thursday, set out at 4:30pm and it took a while to hook up.
The guide finally hooked into a nice tapon after I failed on 3 tries with live mullet. He handed the rod to me and it was a spinner with 25 lb mono, the big fish must have been around 100 lbs and my right arm was getting sore from that fish. Unfortunately it took a leap and must have cut the leader with it's gilplate.
Paul was next and he had his on for a while but didn't quite have a handle on the technique required and soon the small tarpon broke off I think because the guide tightened the drag. Then it was Pauls' turn for a jack crevalle but his was huge, the size of a trashcan lid, but it broke off near the boat.
We caught a few more tarpon, my next one maybe 60 lbs. entered JAWS territory as I failed to keep him in between the bridges and hebecame dinner for the large hammerheads hanging around.Oh well.
My last one was around 70 lbs and we did get it to the boat for a couple of pics of it in the water. Then I tried bombers but the bite slowed as it was nearing quitting time. We headed back with some good memories and had a great time.