AFW

By Jason
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Saturday, June 24, 2006

Today I'll spare the details but we get 20 minutes from land and once again realized we forgot something significant - THE CAST NET.  Back on the water heading to catch bait by 9:30am.

Bait south of Fisherman's Key was abundant - much of an improvement over last week.  At one point there were 7 bait pods in the immediate vicinity.  We caught all the bait we could fit.  I still have to work on my casting skills because I am opening the net an average of 60% if its area each throw.

About 11:30am we headed into Southern Pine Island Sound.  We fished between the channel and York with zero results.

Then we headed to the east side of Chino Island.  It was slow at first - lots of catfish.  Here's Carlos demonstrating that there are more uses for cut squid than meets the eye:

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After a while I caught this little guy, an unexpected Spanish Mackeral:  

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Among the many catfish Karla caught, oddly enough she hooked this one in a most unusual way:

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2:11pm

I was pleasantly surprised to catch this 14.5 inch meaty guy; at first I thought it was a snapper, but later the consensus became that it was a gag grouper:

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2:33pm
Caught on circle hook with live shiner hooked through the lips top-down, 1 split shot 3 feet above hook, 11 feet of water

Karla hooked up on a nice shark that she wouldn't dare grab for a pose:

skin tough as leather
CLICK ON THE PICS for full size ones. 3:28pm

After all of this fun cooled down, we noticed the thunderheads were building inland.  So we began to head back.  We took a relaxing scenic canal-route through central-west St. James city that we have never taken before, and exited near York Island into the bay.  Here is a picture as we approached Picnic Island (Sanibel Harbor Resort in the background):

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5:18pm

We anchored at Picnic Island for a bit and prepared for a downpour.  It appeared that we would be spared from the worst of it.  But then as unpredictable as fishing, it appeared that we were really going to be in for it there at Picnic.  We decided to get back so we braved the rain and some lightening to get back on land about 7:00pm.

With expectations realistic, and some interesting catches for a change, this time we had fun.

• Seas: moderate chop

• Precipitation: heavy

• Water Temperature: unk

• Distance Traveled (mi): 36mi

• Hours out: about 9.5

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