12-18-2010 Port Saint Lucie Offshore Fishing Report:

[Alwaysforward]

Left the ramp around 6:30 this morning with Jason onboard up from Wellington. We made tracks to the bait stops that produced yesterday and no one was home. Worked are way south and took a couple hours to load up a few dozen blue runners.



We had this guy follow us for miles while we were catching the bait this morning. We named him Fred... :biglaugh:





Decided to run Southeast into the waves to make the ride in a dry one (or so we thought)... We reach 160ft around 9:30am an dropped in 4 hoo rigs. Three Iland lures and a C & H lure all ahead of some Ray Offshore Tackle ballyhoos (Thanks again TJ)... We also dropped in the dredge (Thanks again Hank - Ocean Motion for your info on getting this thing, it worked awesome today and yesterday.)

We get hooked up in short order to something that took a ton of line off seconds...





Ten minutes later Jason really in the man in Stripes... :toast:



Next up was a nice Sailfish that Jason fought for about 5 minutes before he came unglued. We had another sail hit a bait but never got tight. We were in 180ft when the storms started building off Jupiter so we made the call to start trolling back to the SLI.. We hit 80ft when another sail came up to the bait behind the dredge but again, he never came tight. (Note to self, start running naked hoos on the close rods...) We were getting a steady rain all the way in but the ride was nice with the following seas.

We continued the troll and when we hit 43ft near the SLI we get another fish up on the bait behind the dredge and starts smoking some line. We had no clue what it was as it never jumped. We were thinking Kingfish in this close. Jason fights the fish for about 20 minutes before we get a look at it... COBIA ON... :toast:

I think we stumbled on a new fishing techniqe... Trolling for Cobia... This thing hit a Iland Chugger ahead of a ballyhoo... Go figure. Anyone else ever have this happen to them? :scratch:

After another 15 minute fight, Jason gets him back up to the boat and its a quick gaff shot and on the deck he goes. Too heavy for the slam dunk into the fish box... Thats a good problem to have right Doug :biglaugh: Took me three trys to get that fin in the box from yesterday... :eek3:





Heres a couple of shots back at the ramp...



Notice the eyes... I made him hold that pose a little longer than he wanted... :biglaugh:



Todays Tally:

0/3 on Sailfish.
1 Cobia
1 Wahoo
Numerous run offs an unglues...

I had a great time today Jason... Lets do it again sometime... :thumbup:

How did you all do today?

[bigyellowtuna]

shhh, don't tell anyone -- I think we stumbled on a new cobia technique. I caught one trolling in close also, but on a planer / spoon combo. I think we were in about 40 feet when he hit.

[Zecura]

Awesome job catchin'!