A Ribbon of Silver

I was at The Tackle Box today talking to Capt. Dave about the Florida Bay happenings. We made some plans to swap a few numbers, my Cobia spots for his Mutton spots. Our talk about the Bay reminded me of a trip I had a few years back. It’s kind of hard to convince people just how good the Mackerel fishing really can be. This might help.

This was a trip in March of 2003. The guys I had on the boat, wanted to learn how to fish the reef and a little offshore. After catching all the tails they wanted, we drifted fish just off the reef in 125 to 150 feet. The drifts produced a few King Mackerel, not big 10 to 15 pounds and we played with some little Tunny. It was nothing all that spectacular just a pretty good day of fishing. After we had burned all chum, I pointed the boat back to the barn.

As I slowed the boat down in front of the marina, one of my crew mentioned that he would like to try for a Spanish mackerel in the bay. Not having anymore chum, only one ballyhoo and about 5 Tunny strips, the prospects weren’t all that exciting, but we had a little more time. We ran 7 miles north just past marker 16. The sun was just perfect in the west, the water gin clear and I spotted a ribbon of silver in the water. After stopping the boat I told the crew to bait and up and pointed to were I wanted them to cast. As soon as the baits hit the water, all four were hooked up on Spanish mackerel. We boated all four, all dead on five pounds, a few minutes later. My crew hadn’t realized until the fish struck what that silver ribbon was, a solid wall of Spanish mackerel. I‘m not good at estimating something like this, but about 25,000 fish is my guess.

Maybe that will give doubters a little better understanding of why the Mackerel fishing can be so good.

Going to sea trial the new boat tomorrow, so until then,

Tight Lines