Shorts, but fun...
July 22, 2023
Stone Harbor
5 photos




Seabass (Black)

Weakfish

Flounder
Trip Summary
Trip Summary
Ran out front with my friend Keith and his son Keith Jr. The maritime forecast was a bit off, imagine my surprise. It called for 2' at 12 seconds, which would've been a dream. Instead it was 2' with occasional 3's at maybe 1 second. It was manageable though.
We had planned on going out to try our hand at trolling to see what we might find. Given the conditions we decided to stay closer and play with flounder. When we arrived on the reef we were greeted by an 8' hammerhead shark cruising along. It came up to the boat then slowly slid back down into the depths before we could get our phones out for a photo. Not sure how effective throwing a baited hook would've been, but that thought crossed our minds briefly.
We set up on our first drift over some heavy rubble piles and found that the drift was rather fast. Spent the rest of the time backtracking rather than using the trolling motor. It worked as we picked at the flounder, sea bass, and weakies. All of which were short, of course.
After we made a few drifts over that pile we moved on the next. Of course some nimrod in a blue boat decided that I knew where the fish were and followed me. And closely, never mind etiquette. I normally don't care if someone is close, it's usually crowded on the reefs. But I was one of six boats, not counting the two head boats there. Spread out! So Mr. Blue kept following me and staying close. Finally I said something, he acted like he couldn't hear me, but must've gotten the message as he moved away. Anyway, we continued to pick at shorts.
We made one more move over a wreck. I spot locked over some choice structure and we tried for sea bass. It was dead at first, but then we started to pick at them. Then it died out again. We took a ride out to check out a buoy, but nobody was home. The wind was coming up some and the white caps were getting more pronounced. We called it a day and ran it back in.
Really fun day out there catching up with Keith and I trouncing Jr. to inshore fishing. Pretty sure he's now hooked...
Tight Lines!