Marlon caught: a spot tail pinfish, a sergeant major, another spot tail pinfish, a blenny and a stone crab - yup, a stone crab!!!
I got hooked up with a spot tail pinfish, a couple of blenny, a sergeant major and a mango snapper (mangrove snapper, at least that's what I think it is). I think if I get a job down here, we might setup a large saltwater tank to grow out some of these nice little fish from the jetties. Tons of fun fishing with ultralight gear!!!
Sergeant Major - this was a significant event for us as we have spotted these fish but not been able to catch one for the entire duration that we have been fishing at the jetties. BAM!!!
Juvenile Grouper - really small guy. He's got big shoes to fill as the King of the Reef. I wasn't expecting this at all (I thought it was another black sea bass).
We also caught a bunch of the blennies and Marlon caught something that looked like a juvenile Pompano - but it came off the hook as he almost got it to hand.
Lastly - the mullet are starting to stack up for their annual run. The river is getting thick with them and I even saw a bunch of splashing going on as a predator fish (likely a Jack Crevalle) was taking shots at various schools. La took a walk on the beach and reported the birds were diving in pretty close to shore - I'm going to have some fun very shortly (on the fly and on topwater poppers) - oh boy!!!!
As the tide started coming in I also saw a bunch of other animals coming onto the sand flat. This stingray was one of them, as were a live horseshoe crab, a crap ton of mullet (most of which had scars from predatory fish encounters) and several smaller whiting.
And late in the afternoon, Marlon and I hit the jetty to see what we could find. We ended up catching a bunch of blennies, some spottail pinfish and a few black sea bass (mind you these are all smaller fish - we're just there having a good time with some ultralight weight spinning rods). We saw a couple of green sea turtles to top it all off.
Tomorrow we have a pretty cool expedition planned -
We caught two new species again - a true blenny, bottom turned mouth and eyes high atop the head are the telltales, more so than the other fish we've been catching that we've called a blenny (mostly because of the appendages a top their heads - and a Spot Tail Pinfish.
Today I also taught the kids how to turn over rocks and find some bait. The fish really turned on when we started using crab sections on the hooks. It really doesn't get much better than this!
Had another fishing contest yesterday afternoon. We each caught 8 (best to leave the official count at a tie), but the interesting thing was the diversity of the species we caught. Noe caught a yearling Black Drum. Marlon caught a young snapper. And we each caught a bunch of the resident rock blennies.
Noe asked to fish where I was and took it one step further. She would drop her rig in to this small area and proceeded to pull up fish after fish - including the baby drum. This small fish trip we are on right now is paying off with the different species we are finding.
Ultralight-weight spinning gear, small hooks and tiny squares of bait - we each caught one (well - after they left, I caught a second). Noe caught a wrasse. Marlon caught a rock blenny and I caught a (two) pigfish. Shortly after, I saw a guy on my left set the hook on something big. He thought it was a stingray, it turned out to be a big red. Dang!!! He was using live finger mullet on a sliding weight rig... big bait for big fish.
First time I've used this rod in saltwater.
I had to add a small split shot to get the fly to sink. I was able to see a bunch of small fish circling the fly - then one was right up on it and 'whack' fish on!
I caught a fiesty Rock Blenny - lip hooked it. It seemed a little perplexed at it's situation. I had several chases after I caught htis blenny, but no other hook ups. I'm going to have to tie up a smaller shrimp fly to nail the other small fish near the rocks (I'm back in my "catch tiny fish" phase)...
Marlon used his Ugly Stik with some shrimp flavored Fish Bites.
He caught a small black sea bass (on his own I might add).
We each caught a rock blenny - both on tiny jigs tipped with "Fish Bites" shrimp flavored - yes I know that is bait fishing even if I used fly gear - but I have a good reason. I lost the three flies I brought with me to the submerged rocks (or fish that grabbed the flies and pulled off by snagging me in the submerged rocks - I like that explanation better). I didn't have anything left but the small jigheads and the bait. I was using my Orvis Hydros 8 wt lined with a Hydros Depth Charge - despite the controversy, catching was fun.
I am writing this on Saturday and I did go fishing today (didn't catch any fish) - we'll try again first thing in the morning at the beach.
