May 8 Report - Shorts and lost rig

[gerard1031]

Got to SSP around10:30 a.m. to prep for outgoing, caught a few pinners, some greenbacks waiting for the turn and fished the cut greenbacks in a rockpile...got several immediate shorts, a few rockups but no keeper size.

I kept switching between freelining a live pin and drowning cut bait and zip on the freeline, but a few more shorts, probably the smallest grouper I've ever caught about the size of a snapper.

Caught a glimpse of the wtf I think, couldn't make out what it was. Saw a few spotted rays...saw what I think was a snook hanging out in the water between roadways. Saw a fellow a few sections down bring in some fairly large macks about one every hour or so. Saw a few more grouper brought in up and down the way, didn't see any that were cooler bound though.

Two items of note, don't you love it when your getting bites and then some sumbitch decides to come over and cast right out in front of you? I just cast straight out anyway and if we get hung so be it...turns out that the fishing gods took care of it, he immediately got stuck and went back to his spot mumbling about not like that rockpile to his friends.

And the second, the bite seemed to wind down as we got to around 4 p.m. when a boater comes buzzing in toward the pier from out anna maria island way and then parallels the bridge I assume looking for bait, I thought he was kind of close in when all of sudden my wife's pole, which had a freelined pinner on it...gets bent, yanked and launched over the rail all in a split second! AHHHH! I see the pole buzzing through the water and it starts to catch my line, my pole luckily was in my hand so I hold on to it, it pops...all this while I'm yelling and trying to whistle at the doofus boater who is just going on about his stupid business..he hardly even took a look back.

I guess he met more resistance further down the pier cuz he lit up the motor and headed out for DeSoto in what looked like a hurry...the bastage.

In any case, an eventful day on the pier, but cooler was empty.

[havetofish]

At least the grouper bite is still on..just gottta cull thru the shorts.

Unfortunately, fishing the Skyway includes putting up with rude people, both in and out of the water. Hopefully your wife's line is wrapped around the guys prop. Just look at it as lesson of never leaving a rod unattended. Last time out saw Flipper get a guys Penn 4/0 that was leaning against the rail.

[BigDawg71]

Dude that sucks...hopefully karma will come back to bite him in the arse!

[goindeep]

Ill add my Saturday report here so we can keep it in a single thread...

Got to the pier about 9:30am...met Fishonfishoff (Rich) at a spot in the alley. Rigged my rods and cast out a piece of cut greenback out to the rocks. About 30 seconds later, pulled up about a 12 inch short...Ok, one cast, one fish...this is gonna be a great day....Next two casts, lost rigs due to snags...so much for my fish on every cast wish...lol...bait was everywhere and easy to get...I didnt see a single threadfin all day though, in the net or on the sabiki. Pinners were easy to get with sabikis tipped with squid. There were also some BIG blue runners, Rich was catching them nearly a foot long while fishing for pins early in the day.

The idiot boaters were out in full force early in the day...setting up shop right in front of people fishing, about 50 yards out. There were alot of shouting matches going on for a while there...and yet there were NO boatts fishing the east side rocks, which are LOADED with fish. WTF...if I had a boat and wanted to fish the skyway rocks, Id be all over the east side...but whatever...

Tide turned to outgoing around noon, but the wind made it hard to freeline pins out...so we pretty much stuck to using greenbacks all day on the bottom. Got a decent 18 inch mack, so I tossed him in the cooler. Ended up catching a bunch of short gags, my biggest was a tad over 20 inches. When I brought him up I noticed he had some of my line and leader in his mouth from a break off about 5 minutes earlier...he won the first battle, I won the second...lol...released him and told him we would meet again someday.

The mango snapper bite turned on sometime after noon, and Rich and I were catching them here and there...all keepers. My smallest was 12 inches, biggest was 16 inches, which is my personal best at the pier. I ended up taking my limit of 5 home. When I brought the 16 incher in, I was taking him to my cooler and some guy 50 yards away yells "THE LEGAL SIZE LIMIT IS 22 INCHES ON THOSE!!!!!!"....lol....Wow, I had no idea they raised the snapper size limit....haha...I guess it was big enough that it looked like a grouper to his non-fish catching eyes from where he was standing...thanks for the info buddy, but try again. I guess he had nothing better to do, he looked bored over there. Maybe if was catching fish he wouldnt have been worried about what I was doing.


One of the pier regulars, Carl, came over and fished for macks next to us for a while, he was nailing them left and right on spoons, he must have caught 15-20 of them, up to 22 or so inches...

Other than that, I didnt see anything caught for 100 yards to either side of us all day...we must have brought in 50 fish between us...lol.

Did get a nasty sunburn though...I always forget top put on the sunscreen til Im fried. Oh well...great day on the water, and other than it gettin a little windy in the afternoon, it was perfect weather wise...packed up and headed out a little after 5pm.

Im always telling people to post pics, so heres my catch before:



and a plate of after:

[havetofish]

Nice mess of Grovers there Steve.
Its amazing how a boater would never come up on another boat that is fishing, but have no problem doing it to a land based fisherman.

Oh..One word..Aloe

[goindeep]

Lol John...I applied about 4 coats of aloe last night and a few today...ud think I'd learn, but I never do...

Man those boaters were bad Saturday....I've never seen that many lined up about 50 years out. Saw a few guys on the pier attempt to fling lead at some of the boaters....freakin morons don't realize that that's assault with a deadly weapon and could land them in jail for a long time.

[gerard1031]

Nice catch, goindeep, and looked like good eating! Were you catching the snaps on cut greenies or shrimp?

Quick follow up report today, went out early again to try to fish the incoming a little bit, wife hooked up a 19 incher on her first pinner float out, I didn't get any bites, so I switched cut greenies on the opposite side near one of my favorite rockpiles...mostly pickoffs, but no appreciable bites until...

I get this frikken monster bite...and start cranking and I'm making progress....but it is pulling my locked down drag...and I pump and reel pump and reel but now he's working sideways and getting ready to go under the pier and I'm already expecting the breakoff...I'm fighting it, can't get it to the surface and he wins the race to the pilings..where, yep...snaps the line at the leader...man, I just sat there full of adrenaline..just wondering what the hell was that...the one that got away.

[gsellers1245]

anytime a boater gets close i make sure i have spare 2oz weights on hand if they become stupid they make great ammunition to throw. Also we used to pee in a balloon and toss it over the rail.

[ripnlips]

I guess I will squeeze my Sunday report on this thread too.

We got to the ssp around 8 am. Saw the bait all over the place so I decided to toss the new net. As I was gathering the net, I realize that the new net is much smaller than the one that I am used to throwing. I give it a toss and realize that this net isn’t gonna cut the mustard. Good thing rich showed up with his net (getting another new net this weekend for sure).

The mack bite was on and off in the morning so I decide to throw on a big threadfin for tarpon. After 20 minutes or so, I jump one about 60-70 pounds. Only got 1 jump from it before he broke off but it was still pretty cool. Jeremy started fishing the reef for snapper. Ended up catching a nice 14” flounder. It was his first. Lost a few grouper to the rocks and decides to join us mack fishing. We saw what appeared to be a shark attacking a mackerel but chris quickly identified it as a huge barracuda. Looked to be about 5 to 6 feet long. It cut that mack in half like a hot knife thru butter. It hung out at the surface for a few minutes before it moved on. That thing looked like a truck bumper with teeth. Could be a good candidate for the wtf.

The mack bite fired up a little after the tide change. It was non stop from 3pm til we left at 6. Ended up catching at least 100 of them between the 6 of us. Kept a few of the big ones for dinner.

[arrantzale]

I didnt even know we had barracuda around here. I hooked one in the bahamas once but I had no clue they came this far north.

Nice mangos! Whatd you catch them on?

[goindeep]

Nice report Marrio.... lol @ truck bumper with teeth

arrantzale and gerard, all my fish were caught on cut greenbacks on the reefs (with 2-3 oz weight)

[Floridaboy]

May 9, 2010 20:40:27 GMT -5 ripnlips said:

The mack bite was on and off in the morning so I decide to throw on a big threadfin for tarpon. After 20 minutes or so, I jump one about 60-70 pounds. Only got 1 jump from it before he broke off but it was still pretty cool.

Too bad he didn't jump into one of the boats. Maybe then they might get the message. ;D

[David from NC]

Great informational reports....thanks for your posts. Heading out this morning to give it a shot.

Seeing the grub on the plate is always an encouragement!

It is a shame about the boaters with no manners, especially when it results in the loss of gear. I had one Thursday that ran across my lines also. What do we do that is not criminal?

[douglasb]

Hmmm....

I was the one that yelled about the size limit.

I wanted to walk over and apologize... but the wife, who hates any kind of confrontation what so ever told me to sit still.

I've gotta admit I thought it was a grouper from a distance, and I'm about sick to death of seeing people keep fish that aren't anywhere near the limits. I've watched more 16-19 inch groupers go in coolers than back into the water, and I swore to myself I wouldn't keep quiet about it anymore. (Although in my defense, from 50 yards away that's one big ole pier mangrove....)

And yeah, I was pretty ticked that I couldn't seem to buy a bite from a grouper, but we were also pretty ticked that it seemed like everyone and their brother had 20 rods or more out. (There was a goup of guys near the baitshop that had 17 rods covering a span of about 50 yards and not a single one was in the water.)


I felt like an a** when ya told me what it was.

Now... about my non fishing eyes, or what have you.... we caught our limit on spanish mackeral, and 3 keeper mangroves but that's neither here nor there.



I do apologize for assuming you were breaking the law, and I'm glad that you post here so I was able to say just that.

More about the non-confrontational wife.... due to the incident, I've been told that she's never going back to the pier with me on a Saturday.

[goindeep]

Douglas

No sweat...and no need to apologize...nothin wrong with callin someone out if you believe they might be taking an illegal fish...

I was just venting a bit in my post...after I posted it I started to wonder if the guy who yelled that might be a forum member...and the backlash it might cause. So I also apologize for assuming you weren't catching fish...and I'm glad you posted on here. Congrats on the keepers you got...but from now on, let's get with the program and take some pics and post em with your reports!!! Lol

Anyway, I'm pretty non-confrontational myself...so I get your wife's POV on the matter. I say its all water under the pier, no big deal...next time out I'd like to meet ya and say hello...this forum has a great bunch of guys, and even though we kinda got off on the wrong foot, there's no reason we can't wet a line sometime...I actually respect the fact that you'd yell out across the pier like that not knowing what type of reaction you might get or what type of person you may be dealing with....so for that you're okay in my book...a little crazy maybe, but okay...lol

We actually had a bit of a laugh over it...the next gag I pulled up, about a 12 incher, fishonfishoff, bein the smartass he is, says 'you know the size limit on that is 22 right'....lol...

So enough about that...welcome to the forum, glad to have ya here. I'm gonna try to get out again next weekend even though there's a full moon....I may just make it a night trip and try my luck without the heat of the sun....that first keeper gag of 2010 is on one of those rockpiles...and I'm gonna find his arse...lol

[riverviewsteve]

Douglas & goindeep that last exchange was handled
in a very excellent manner. You are two big guys in
my book. Even though I've probably never met either
of you. I hope that will change out on the pier some
day. goindeep I got to laugh. You talking about getting
your first keeper for 2010. Ha! I'm still looking for mine
for this decade. Having said that I have put 3 19 inchers
back that I hoped would grow a little and come back for
seconds. My hats off to both of you. Tight Lines and full
coolers.
riverviewsteve

[montylfl]

May 9, 2010 19:48:58 GMT -5 gsellers1245 said:

. Also we used to pee in a balloon and toss it over the rail.

LMFAO.

Goingdeep. Nice haul. hmmmm snapper.

[eaglesfanguy]

Yep, Classy folks round here. Thats why this is my Go to forum.
Hell If you'd have been round for the rounds Skyjay and i went.. You would nevr have thought we would be fishing buds..lol.
I used to call him out as Cryjay...LMFAO.... Good times.. He's one of the best charachters i ever had the pleasure to meet, and fish with. He's an awsome man.
Dissagreements will happen, but ask yourself.... are you man enough to admit when your wrong?.
Fish on folks...

And i am one who will comment on someone who i believe has a short.. Im nosey so i'll go investigate a questionable fish.. And let em know the law, and call fwc right in front of em .
Piss on the law breakers......

[filletnrelease]

I seem to remember he called you the "Drunkin Eagle". Those were the day's, glad you guy's worked it out, did get a little tiring.