This trip had a boatful, with 6 guest onboard. It was a reef fishing trip,
to 8A. As we were leaving the inlet, it looked like a "Rodeo" at the mouth
in the port with at least 25 boats tightly clustered. With Tarpon, Jacks
and Shark following the bait pods, many opted to fish close to shore for
these fish, and the bait used also was close to shore.

We headed straight to the reef and set anchor. Keeping 6 guest busy,
especially with 4 young ones onboard is a lot of work. Chum went out,
and lines went down. Despite the bite being pretty slow by typical
reef standards we still likely boated 200 fish for the trip. A lot of Grunts
and short Sea Bass made it the bulk of the catch, but some dinner sized
fish including Trigger and SeaBass were put in the icebox. Shark and
Cuda were also on the days list of fish fought.

The catch seemed to come in 'waves' with periods of dead inturupted
with 15 minutes of a hot bite. A couple sharks were caught, The first
cut the line after the leader was tended, so it was an official catch for
the young angler, and his first shark catch. Another Shark (Sharpnosed)
was boated, but she apparently had Pups in her, so we decided for a
release to add more to the reef population.

A large Barracuda was spending time around the boat, but not interested in
anything artifical. A live pinfish, and live grunt was offered, and also it
turned away from it. Finally a small SeaBass was caught (on the lightest
tackle I had on the boat (6-12lb spin), with a Jighead (no wire). As it came
around the boat, the Cuda saw this and quickly hit it and released. Mortally
injured, the SeaBass stayed in the water, and the Cuda got a better grip this
time. Drag peeled, and the rod was handed off to my guest. The fight was
only a minute long but the grin on the anglers face lasted much longer. The
Cuda never got too the hook, but meerly had a good grip on the SeaBass.
Good enough for it to eventually bite through, leaving only the head to come
in with the hook. Having gotten a nice meal, we did not see it again.

Despite a slow bite, we still had some nice action, and took some fish home
for a meal. Back to the docks we went to clean fish. Also, despite what I
call a slow bite day, once back at the docks, the young ones hit the A/C of
Fishermens World while I cleaned fish. They commented on how wore out
they were from the days fishing, and had sore arms from all the fish brought in!

Captain Henry
ACME Ventures Fishing
www.ACME-Ventures-Fishing.com
321-794-7955
602 Glen Cheek Dr., Cape Canaveral Fl.
Deep Sea Fishing Charters Port Canaveral
"Wile E Coyote"