AFW

By Jason
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Friday, August 11, 2006
Entertained Karla's family with catfish and caught my first snook!

Well it was a Friday night, and Karla's family who was visiting from afar would be leaving on Saturday morning.  And since we had not gone on an official fishing trip with them during their visit, tonight would be the one last opportunity to do so.  So passengers were Emma (61, Karla's mom), Josh (17, Karla's nephew), Carlitos (5, Karla's nephew), Karla, Amber and myself.  I was not optimistic at all that we would get any action whatsoever.  I figure between the recently passed Red Tide, all the rain lately, and our mysterious ability to repel fish where ever we are, we would have no luck.  We left land at about 8:45pm with some cut squid.  Moonrise was at about 9pm or so.

First we hit some snook lights.  It was amazing what we saw under each snook light we visited; hundreds upon hundreds of small to medium sized catfish feverishly churning at the surface (oh great!).  Located strategically around the catfish, but lower, were a handful of snook. 

At the first snook light I threw my cast net and captured some a medium catfish and at least 10 baby 2 inch catfish.  Wow!  We have never caught baby catfish before.  We let the medium catfish go and found babies coming out of it as it swam away.  We kept the babies as that was our only source of live bait at the time.  But one cast of the net is all you got at each snook light as what we did not catch was scared away.

Next stop would be the Cape Coral Bridge.  We anchored on the north side just east of the channel.  We were right about in the shadow line and very very close to the pilings, at a depth of 11 feet.

I submerged the 12v submersible fish light about 3 feet under the surface.  We observed many many bait fish at 2-3 inches, with an occasional larger fish at 6-10 inches.  A few of us fished, and we caught many catfish.  After a while, I decided to throw the cast net.  What a surprise as I caught live bait!!!!!!!!!   I had never caught live bait in water deeper than 3 feet or in the river before!!  So I threw and threw and caught about 30-40 pieces.  There were bait boils as far as we could see near the shadow line of the bridge from one end to another, all night.

At one point Karla was pinched apparently by a bait fish.  So we were very careful not to touch the baitfish after that.  Her finger became numb.  Strange!  Then later, I was jabbed too!  It stung and I hollered out.  Everyone on the boat jumped, lol.  We later determined that it was no fish jabbing us, but jellyfish!  There were lots of jellyfish out there we later observed.

Many many catfish were caught.  Here's Josh with one of his 7 catfish:

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10:42pm

Josh was thrilled to make so many catches!  I'm glad I can entertain my guests with cats!!!

Here is Carlitos with his fat cat:

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11:15pm

During the time we were anchored at the bridge, there were a couple of HUGE jumpers out there.  I concluded that they were tarpon until we witnessed one of them which was a bottle-nosed dolphin.  There were a school of at least 6 southbound heading toward the bait at the bridge.

As we headed back, we stopped at some snook lights again.  I picked up several catfish, but at the very last snook light, there was a very interesting surprise waiting for me!  We shut down the motor and slowly drifted toward the target.   I casted out, and soon after I caught a snook!  Wooooooo Hoooooooo! My first snook EVER!!!

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3:05am

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3:06am

It measured at 19.5 inches total length.   He was put back in, of course, to live another day.  What a jumper!!!

We were back on land by 3:30am, and pleasantly surprised by the action tonight!  Not bad for under 10 bucks in gas.

• Seas: Calm (Completely flat)

• Wind: light to none

• Precipitation: none

• Water Temperature: 

• Distance Traveled (mi): 5 mi

• Hours out: almost 7

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