From: cli@netcom.com (Concurrent Logic Inc)
Subject: Keys Fishing Report
Keywords: fishing
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 23:53:26 GMT


Just thought I'd file my fishing report for those who requested such when I
was asking information about fishing in the Keys.  Let's see if I can 
remember what happened :-).

First of all I'd like to thank those that provided input to my request about
fishing there:
	Shelly, Alan, Ed, Bill, and Joyce.

We got into the Keys on Thanksgiving afternoon and shortly after I left some
messages to try and get ahold of Fred (Joyce's husband).  Got ahold of him
on Friday and went for a visit.  We chatted for awhile and hoped that we
could get a split charter setup for either Saturday or Sunday.  Then it was
off to explore and try a little shore fishing and sightseeing.  Caught some
small barracuda (and lost some lures w/o a steel leader) and a few small
snappers.  We also looked around Key West to see what that was like.

Got back that night and Fred had left a message at the hotel letting me know
there was a trip arranged for Saturday.  Found out from the hotel manager that
Fred had been by quite a few times to make sure I got the message.  Guess 
Joyce really threatened him :).  So I contacted him and got the details.

Saturday morning the weather looked kind of ugly, with the wind blowing pretty
strong.  As soon as I got up, the electricity went out, so I had to grope
around a strange room in the dark to find my stuff to get going.  As I went
out the door, Fred just drove up to make sure I was up.  He had been by 
earlier and didn't see any lights so he was worried I didn't get up.  How's
that for service?

I met the other people that were splitting the charter and after they all
found some food for the day (which took awhile since most food places were
w/o electricity and not working at peak performance :( ) we were off.  We 
finally took off a bit after 7:00, which was our target time anyway.  Fred 
left us in the able hands of his son Les and a captain whose name I have 
forgotten.

After a few minutes we started back in and Les explained that he had forgotten
to lock up and since the electricity was out, he couldn't get ahold of the
dock to take care of it.  So, I was beginning to think it's going to be
"another one of those days".  After a brief intermission we were back on
our fishing trip.  First, we had to get some bait which took awhile despite
the wonderful throws of the hoop net by Les, there just wasn't a lot of bait
fish around.  Didn't make it any better to hear on the radio that some boats
were already catching sailfish.

After the bait was in the tank, it was a quick ride to the fishing grounds
along with all the other boats.  We caught a kingfish shortly after starting
which helped our outlook on the day.  We continued catching fish most of the
day, with just enough time in between to keep us interested.  I think we had
a total of 9 kingfish and 2 bonito that day.  There were a lot of strikes
and a lot of lines with no hooks on them.  I felt sorry for Les, who was
going crazy trying to keep all the lines in the water.  I thought it would
be better if he let those of us who know how to fish to help rig up the lines
but it was hard to convince him of that.  Sure would have helped to keep more
lines in the water all the time.

My most exciting fish was a 15lb bonito on a 12lb spinning outfit.  It was
definitely a great fight with the biggest bonito I've ever caught.  I was
hoping we had hooked a sailfish at the time, since it was one of the top-lines
that was hit, but nothing ever surfaced, so we knew it must have been something
else.

A little after noon we went to get some more bait.  This time, the bait was
plentiful, and it just took a couple more spectacular throws of the hoop net
and we were back in business.  Unfortunately, the fishing had started to taper
off, and there were a couple of guys on the boat who needed to get back to
catch a plane in Key West, so we couldn't stay out too much longer.  I think
we caught a couple more fish, and then headed back in.

All in all, it was a pretty good trip, despite the slow start.  The weather
turned out to be pretty good after all that day, and we all caught our share
of fish.

The two guys who needed to catch a plane didn't want any of their fish, and
I only took a small kingfish since I wasn't sure what to do with more fish.
The other two guys brought home the rest of it.  I waited around for awhile
since I was supposed to get a picture of Fred and his boat and hadn't taken
it the previous day.  Unfortunately, there was a traffic accident and so Fred
wasn't able to make it (don't worry Bill, I took it the next day, but as
you may know Joyce was not around, so you still don't know what she looks
like).

That night we had Kingfish Ceviche, which was actually pretty tasty, and easy
to prepare especially when there is nothing to cook with in the hotel room.

That was about it for my fishing in the Keys.  Tried to arrange another split
for the next day but they could only find two other people and I needed at
least three.  So, we did some more exploring, went to see the Key Deer area
and some other places around there.  The weather had turned pretty cold that
day so I didn't feel like braving the flats to see if I could try and catch
a bonefish.  I visited the places that were recommended by various people and
saw nobody fishing them so I guess I wasn't missing out on much. (I hope)

The rest of my vacation was a cruise to a number of islands in the Carib.
Tried fishing on St Martin and caught a few small reef fish.  I did have
one very large fish following my lure once, but was unable to identify it.
There was no way, I was going to haul that creature in on my spinning rod,
but it would have been a fun fight.

When I was snorkeling on St Thomas, we went to Coki Beach, which is where
Coral World is.  I don't know if you can fish there (I didn't try), but...
On one side of the bay, there were a bunch of Pelican's dive bombing what
looked to be a section of reef.  We went over there, and the dark path which
we thought was reef was actually a huge ball of small fish.  It was fun
swimming in the middle of them and being totally surrounded by fish.  Upon
exiting I saw a couple of schools of tarpon, probaly in the 30 lb range 
feeding on the outside of this bait.  There was one solitary fish that was
probably about 50 lbs or so doing the same.  This was only about 10 feet
from shore!  So, if you ever make to St. Thomas you might think about
bringing your tarpon setups.

Any Q's please let me know

Scott

Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.fishing