Fun Day on a 3hr Kids' Fun Trip

Sometimes it pays to reach out at the last minute, which is what my little group did yesterday. On a spur-of-the-moment trip to the beach, they decided to try a private charter instead of their usual head boat trips. Fortunately, I had an opening for an afternoon kids' trip, so we were on! We waited out a line of thunderstorms and made it out onto the water at around 3pm. The wind had died out and the seas were beautiful and calm in the trail of the squalls, which made for perfect conditions to troll the beach for Spanish. On the downside, the storm had scattered the fish and driven them down, so we couldn't really count on feeding birds or surface feeding to find them... we just had to hunt. The hunting wasn't too difficult though, and we had our first bluefish before I even got my second line set out. It was no monster, but 14 year-old McKinley brought it to the boat like a seasoned pro. Throughout the afternoon, we hit the scattered blues and Spanish, releasing the blues in favor of the tastier mackerel. The little family just wanted enough for a nice dinner, so that's what we got. At the end of the trip, we'd released a small pile of bluefish and some undersized Spanish to send Amanda, Brandon, and McKinley home with eight, perfect-sized fish. The last I heard, the plan was fish tacos. I'm betting it went great! This is a great time of year to get out there and get some fish tacos for yourself! Come on down!