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Post by dls0680 on Jun 18, 2015 21:42:45 GMT -5
My fiancé and I have fished the pier 4-5x the past month and have only had luck with pinfish and grunts. Would you mind giving us some pointers to help us catch some real fish? Pleaseeeee..... We are going out Saturday morning and would love to catch something decent. Can you give us some advice on setup, bait, technique all that good stuff. We have become soooo frustrated with fishing lately. I think were doing it all wrong. Thank you
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Post by blacktip on Jun 18, 2015 22:02:37 GMT -5
~points~ to past post and sticky links. Hope you guys do well on your next trip. Reports are always welcome good or bad, and pics are a great too.
Tight Lines
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TheAshtonB
Eager Angler
Warning
Just go fishing man
Posts: 60
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Post by TheAshtonB on Jun 19, 2015 13:47:54 GMT -5
dls0680 The skyway has plenty to offer right now, anything from Mangrove Snapper to 300lb+ Goliath grouper can be caught. What i suggest for you to try is Spanish Mackerel or Snapper Fishing. These two species are relatively easy to catch if the conditions are good. For both species, a good way to start is by using a Sabiki rig to catch all your whitebait for the day. Whitebait are the small fish you see everywhere around the pilings throughout the day. As far as Sabiki rigs go, use the nicer quality rigs, I use the rigs by Marathon. These Sabiki rigs are made of real fish skin and entice the most strikes. For Spanish Mackerel, My outfits consist of ultralight spinning reels spooled with 10-20lb braid blood knotted to a 30lb leader. It is CRUCIAL that you stay away from swivels or any type of shinny metal on your fishing rigs. The biggest mistake novice fishermen make at the skyway is the use of "walmart rigs" with tons of snaps/swivels/beads/etc. All this hardware does nothing but scare away the more desirable game species. The only fish you will catch on these rigs are pinfish and similar panfish but I digress. Anyway, so I use 10-20lb braid blood knotted to a 30lb fluorocarbon leader, and for a hook, I use a size 1 Owner brand circle/shank hybrid. If bigger mackerel are biting, bump up your leader to 50lb. For bait, use the greenback you Sabiki when you first arrive. If the greenback is under 6in, just cut off its tail, hook it through the nose, and let it float in the top water column, this attracts the biggest spanish mackerel > . The strike can be almost immediate and you will see the fish hit your bait, which is awesome to watch. For larger greenback, cut the head off, descale the body with a knife edge, and cut a sliver of the shiny belly off. These cut strips are the best mackerel bait IMO. If you can't get greenbacks, buy shrimp in the bait house and hook it through the face or tail, and let it float a few inches under the surface. If you want to use lures, Gotcha pugs, speck jigs, and spoons can be highly effective. Nothing beats live bait though, the natural presentation will get you more/larger fish. To locate were the mackerel are feeding just find spots heavy with greenback activity and cast into the tide, which ever way it is going. You may have to fish off either side of the pier in order to go with the tide. Keep your bait, whatever it is, only a few inches to a foot under the water, this is actually an easy task with the rig i recommended as there is almost no weight to pull the bait down. Letting your bait fall too close to the bottom will attract the pinfish who feed there. Mackerel will be able to easily identify potential food as it gleams right under the surface of the water. With polarized glasses, you will actually be able to see the mackerel as they strike your bait. Mackerel are dark green/brown in appearance under the water, and may strafe your bait several times before striking. When this happens, do not reel the bait back up, let it fall naturally and this will evoke an attack. For Mangrove Snapper, My outfit is similar to the mackerel outfit. 10-20lb braid with a 1/4 - 1oz egg sinker attached to a small BLACK swivel, with 25-30lb fluorocarbon leader and a small size 4 Owner circle or circle/shank hybrid hook. For snapper its simple, just use cut bits of shrimp or greenback, and cast near pilings or any good looking structure. Snapper fishing is incredibly hit or miss. Some spots will have large snapper, some spots will have small snapper, and some spots may have pinfish. You have to figure out where the bigger mangroves snapper are through trial and error. I hope you find this information useful. Keep in mind that good fishing takes experience, skill, dedication, but most importantly LUCK. It took me several years of fishing at the skyway and all around Florida to accumulate my knowledge thus far. I still have days were I go and catch absolutely nothing. Unfortunately you will have many of these days too. Nevertheless good luck to you and I hope you do well on Saturday, Happy Fishing! Sabiki Rig I reccomend Good Jig to use
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Post by tears143 on Jun 19, 2015 17:06:41 GMT -5
All of those basically sums it up. I'll be out there tomorrow morning as well.
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Post by dls0680 on Jun 19, 2015 17:34:28 GMT -5
TheAshtonB..... Wow. Thank you sooooo much. That's exactly the type of help I was hoping for. Thank you so much for taking the time to type all that out to help us. I can't wait to give it a try tomorrow. My girl will try snappers using your technique and I will try for Macks. I will post how I do here. Thank you again.
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Post by dls0680 on Jun 19, 2015 17:40:50 GMT -5
TheAshtonB..... Wow. Thank you sooooo much. That's exactly the type of help I was hoping for. Thank you so much for taking the time to type all that out to help us. I can't wait to give it a try tomorrow. My girl will try snappers using your technique and I will try for Macks. I will post how I do here. Thank you again.
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Post by tears143 on Jun 19, 2015 20:06:36 GMT -5
There basically won't be an tide tomorrow. Use little weight for the snappers and long leader.
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Post by dls0680 on Jun 20, 2015 16:23:26 GMT -5
Well we just got back home from the Skyway a little while ago. We did not really have much luck. We used all of the pointers you helped us with but we did not see many people catching much of anything either. We did see 3 Spanish mackerel caught by 3 different people other than that not much going on. It was really hot outside so I am going to blame that for not many fish. We caught lots of pinfish and a few grunts and I had something that took my bait and took off with it it ended up snapping my line off. I with I could have seen what it was. It was on my bigger rod 30lb braid and 30lb flouro leader and it snapped the leader off. We will give it a try again next week or the week after. One of these times I will post pics. Thanks again.
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TheAshtonB
Eager Angler
Warning
Just go fishing man
Posts: 60
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Post by TheAshtonB on Jun 22, 2015 14:10:59 GMT -5
Well we just got back home from the Skyway a little while ago. We did not really have much luck. We used all of the pointers you helped us with but we did not see many people catching much of anything either. We did see 3 Spanish mackerel caught by 3 different people other than that not much going on. It was really hot outside so I am going to blame that for not many fish. We caught lots of pinfish and a few grunts and I had something that took my bait and took off with it it ended up snapping my line off. I with I could have seen what it was. It was on my bigger rod 30lb braid and 30lb flouro leader and it snapped the leader off. We will give it a try again next week or the week after. One of these times I will post pics. Thanks again. Sounds good, fishing can be really swing or miss but hopefully you will get some fish on your next trip
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