Since my customers had to cancel the rest of the week, I found myself with a Friday off to go fishing. After watching an estimated 60 inch Snook shake the hook a couple of days earlier, I just had to give them another shot. I called my good friend Nelson on Thursday to see if he wanted to accompany me. We decided to leave at 10:00a.m. Friday morning.
There were some Pinfish left over in the well from earlier in the week and one dethorned live catfish but we knew that surely would not be enough bait for the day. We headed down the river to a local flat in San Carlos Bay to catch Pinfish and Whitebait. After moving two times we finally found the bait and loaded the well with Whitebait and Pinfish. While I chummed, Nelson tossed a rootbeer jig and caught a nice 20 plus inch Trout before we made our first cast with the cast net.
Next we headed to a mangrove cut that always seems to produce plenty of Snook action. Nelson skipped his pearl Zoom jerk bait under the mangrove and as soon as it hit the water Snook ON!! Nelson reeled in a nice 24 incher. I then tossed a white bait in there and Bam!! Snook On!! it turned out to be a healthy 23 or 24 incher. Then Nelson tossed a Whitebait in there and Fish On!! here comes another Snook, 3 casts and 3 Snook. Nelson said: "Boy is it going to be a great day." I told him to hush, we didn't want to get jinxed. Like clockwork the jinx was on, we didn't get another fish over the next 30 minutes. We soon left the mangroves and tried a bar nearby. We only managed one trout and a Ladyfish. The tide was starting to go out so we decided to hit the deep water and try for the Big Boys.
Even though, we were fishing the first part of the outgoing the bite was quite slow. The first hour we fished produced very little action. But when the tide started moving and as the bait showed up, so did the bite. Nelson kept seeing bait pile up behind the boat and he decided to get out the net and see what we would come up with. He jumped on top of the poling platform and made a cast. As he tried to pull up the bait, we both ended up having to pull the net up in order to get the bait in the well. I bet we had 400 or so Threadfin in one cast. We made one more move and Nelson decides to fish with Threadfins on the 15 to 40 Cape Fear with Ahab size 12 spooled with 80 pound Fins Braid white, 60 pound leader and 6/0 Eagle Claw Black Chrome live bait hook. He starts to get hit after hit. I mean crunched. He pulled in a couple of nice grouper and lost one huge fish when his leader broke, all bites were on threadfin. Meanwhile I was fishing with a big Ladyfish and only got one bite and the hook pulled.
After seeing Nelson get hit after hit I changed my ladyfish and put on a threadfin. I didn't get a bite but I think the 150 pound leader and 8/0 hook may have been scaring them off. Nelson didn't have any such problem however and the hits kept a comin. On one cast Nelson tossed his bait up current and got hung up on something. Somethin' all right!, that somethin' started shaking its' head and when Nelson set the hook again, the fish didn't move. Then it started trucking Nelson it ran him under the boat, around the boat, under the anchor, and finally it decided to leave the building. I was busy pulling in the other rods so we could chase it. Nelson yells back that he is almost out of braid and into his backing. I instructed him to back off on the drag and we would chase the fish. He said he already did, well as soon as it reached the backing POP!! There she went. He checked his drag after recuperating from the battle and loss of the fish. Near lock down was the verdict, he couldn't believe how strong the fish was he had just lost. When Nelson went to rerig we realized someone had stolen all of our leader off of the boat before we left the dock. We had 150 Triple Fish, 60 Ande, and 30 Trilene Big Game, they were all gone. All we had was 20 pound Berkley Fluro and that was not going to cut it. So I cut the leader off of my Cal 700 so we could respool the Size 12 Ahab with 80 pound Fins from it. Then we split the leader in half.
Now it was my turn for a little action, Nelson had been having all of the fun up until now. I had been telling Nelson to put the large Trout on we had caught earlier in the day to see if something would eat it. He kept saying: Why? Look at all of the fish I am getting on the Threadfin. So I grabbed the 20 plus inch trout and tossed it up next to the structure. On the way down I felt a jolt. I gave the fish a little line and Slammed the hook home. I was going to put it to whatever just ate my bait. About 1 second later I was jerked on to my toes and slid a good six inches accross the deck before I got my footing back. I actually was worried there for a minute about going in, but then I gained some line and had the fish coming back towards the boat. I felt the fish heading for the surface and that was when I knew it was a big snook. Sure enough a long linesider surfaced at the top. She sure was a pretty one, a solid 16 pounds.
Well after that snook ate the Trout all we were left with was a catfish and a bunch of other smaller baits. I hate catfish and have never even fished with a live one before. I apprehensively put it on anyhow. I tossed it towards the Pilings and nothing happened for 5 minutes or so. I reeled back in and tossed it back to nearly the same spot. On the way down I felt a Thud!! I gave the fish some line and yelled back at Nelson, I had one on. I set the hook hard. The next thing I know I am getting jerked all the way down the back of the deck and onto the top of the poling platform. I was pulled up onto my toes and had to wrap my leg around the poling platform when I hit it to keep from going overboard. There was no way I was letting my rod go. I sure was scared and I even panicked there for a split second, while asking myself what to do.. I felt very helpless, the Fins Braid did not stretch or give even an inch and the 15 to 40 Cape Fear was a very stiff rod so there was little to no give. Luckily for me while all this was going on the line to line uni-knot broke where I had spliced some braid in earlier. This is one of the few times I was actually glad to loose a big fish. I thought I was a tough guy and the tackle is what matters the most when it comes to pulling in big fish. It was more like: Can you keep your body in the boat when a big fish decided to bust your bait? I have never been punked like that before and didn't really think it could happen. Boy! Was I wrong!!! Be careful if you are ever out there fishing lock down with big fish. They can pull you overboard if they want to. There was no fighting this guy, he just knocked me out. After that it was time to go. There were no more big baits, no more big leader, and no toilet paper to clean myself off with either.
We decided to take our well full of Threadfin up the river to fish the Canal Tuna and Tarpon Hole. When we arrived I began to throw out 6 and 7 Threads at a time because my well pump arm had broken off and was making a ton of noise, so I had to turn it off. Not long after chumming, here came the boils and busts all over the place. Those fish were killing the chum. We put out four live tail hooked Thredfin rigs and casted with two other rods rigged the same way. Nelson hooks into a fish and when it busts the surface a big ol snook is on the other end of his line. We got lucky to get her in. She was near some docks and under a barnacle encrusted boat. Nelson only had 30 pound test leader. Needless to say, he did a great job keeping the fish out of cover and from breaking the line. While Nelson had his fish on, something goes screaming off with one of the Threadfin rods. After 5 minutes or so it turned out to be a nice Canal Tuna. Soon darkness began to fall upon us, so we decided to call it a day.
In conclusion, we had a great day and in the end we were both humbled. Just when you start to get a little to cocky there always seems to be something out there to put you in your place. Keep those rods bent and don't get pulled overboard.
Until next time may you have line singing, leader fraying, tackle busting action!!!!Call Captain Chancey @ (239)540-7529
