Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Little Brother, Little Shark

Every time you go fishing you have a small window of opportunity. It's what you do with that window that matters. Many fish love moving water and sharks aren't any different.

We typically fish incoming tides and outgoing tides. High tide raises the water level in the troughs just off the beach allowing game fish to move in and feed.

If you were to fish low tide from the beach you would need to drop your lines in very, very far to get into deeper water. Conversely, low tide on a flat concentrates fish to deeper channels, cuts, and coves.

But back to beach shark fishing... We had missed the incoming tide and now had 2 hours to fishing the outgoing since John U. Lloyd Beach State Park was to close at sunset.

I immediately rigged up 2 baits and dropped one 100 yards away and another 50 yards away. I like to place baits in different zones because you never know a) which trough the fish are swimming in and b) how close they are to the shore break.

For example, this 6ft Christmas Lemon Shark was caught on a chunk of bonita only 25 yards from the shore!


On a sunny day, you can stand on the eroded sand wall and see shadows moving around the surf. If the water is too clear, you'll need to lighten your tackle to increase hook up ratio. I've seen sharks swim in circles around my bait on a clear day and my 100lb wire gave me away.

Here's the video of my brothers little black tip:




And the picture


As always, Tight lines

Saturday, January 28, 2012

North Biscayne Bay Trout Fishing 1/28/12

The old man and myself hit the bay around 8am this morning to catch the incoming tide. We put in at Pelican Harbor Park right off of 79th street causeway.




The conditions were perfect; overcast with a slight breeze, dead flat seas. We immediately paddled past Bird Island toward the 3 square-mile flat.


We began to work the narrow channels in the flat and caught a couple cudas and trout using a Gulp Alive! Shrimp on a jighead under a popping cork. The popping cork imitates the sound of a trout feeding and attracts other trout to the area.




Once the action died down we moved east to drift fish the large channel. EVERY cast yielded a fish. In some cases, the bait hit the water and we had a trout on. The "tactic" if you want to call it that was to drop your Gulp down and set the hook. Automatic.

Trout have very soft tissue surrounding their mouth. Be careful not to set the hook too hard or you will find yourself not only losing fish but having a lure flying right at your face.

My dad ended up with the largest trout of the day, a modest 14.5 incher.


We fished until we ran out of Gulp shrimp and let me tell you that the trout were still whacking our baits with less than an inch of Gulp left on the hook!

Day Totals:

30 trout
5 over 13inches
3 cudas
1 puffer

All caught on 6 Gulp shrimps. Talk about stretching out the bait.

Until next time!

Dave