The bright yellow topwater lure slowly but surely made its way back to the boat, each 'chug' sending ripples of water outward in the mirror flat water. The sun had just broken over the horizon and its early morning tendrils shone through the nearby pines on the shoreline to dance on the bay.
The wind had yet to come up, so the only sounds to be heard was the quiet whirring of the trolling motor and the rhythmic 'chug' of my lure. But that rhythmic chug was abruptly broken.
A splash, followed by the tug on the line and the screaming of the drag ripped apart the early morning calm. The fight was on.
But what I didn't know was what was on the end of my line. Surely not some trout, I thought as the fish continued to take line. I was fishing too deep honestly. What in the world was it? A small jack crevalle? A red?
After a few minutes of fighting I got my first glimpse of silver under the pale green waters of St. Joe bay. It was a Spanish Mackerel. And a big one at that. The picture doesn't do it justice, and please excuse the hair...
I generally don't view Spanish as noteworthy unless I'm writing about a fish fry, but this one was a big one. I never measured it, nor weighed it. But there was a brief discussion with my dad as to whether or not I had a small King.
With a quick tail grab, the hefty fish was in the boat, and thrown on ice. I wanted desperately to fill the cooler with these guys, so as soon as my lure was free, it was back out there, chugging away.
And once again, on my next cast, it only took a few chugs before another monster Spanish attacked the lure. This time the fish went skyward, shaking his toothy head and ripping line back off the reel. But unfortunately, as quickly as the fight started, it ended. That all too familiar "blip" when your heart sinks and you know you've been cut off. I reeled up a lureless line and said goodbye to a favorite lure of mine. Luckily it died doing its job and wasn't lost in grass or some ill-placed tree.
As my luck would have it, I didn't have another lure just like it. It was the only one of its kind I had in the tackle box. I tried tying on very similar lures, but never had the same kind of luck again. Topwater is always exciting, and I found that big Spanish on the surface are quite the thrill. Over the years I'd actually forgotten how much fun it can be to catch these toothy critters. Maybe next time I can land a few more (with a thicker leader), and make the most of a good fish fry.
Well...I did it. I'd been trying since early May and I was finally successful this morning at landing a King Mackerel from the kayak.
Got out to the beach at 0530 this morning and launched. It was a little choppy right off the bat, but wasn't too bad. The wind began to pick up once the sun got a little higher and blew right out of the north which pushed the yak further and further offshore. After wrestling with my sabiki rig for close to a decade, I managed to catch one live cigar minnow. The rig was promptly lost on a Spanish with the next cast.
Unfortunately my live Cig was eaten by a remora after only a few minutes. With it gone, I switched to frozen cigs and slow trolled for about an hour. I proceeded to catch nothing on the dead cig so I switched to a red and white diving lure. Over the course of my fishing career, I'd only caught one King with a lure, and that was my very first one that I mentioned in a previous post.
I dragged the lure straight back to shore about 1/2 mile until I reached the second sand bar. I paddled just about as hard as I could so that the lure could dive properly. Just a few seconds before I gave up trolling, I heard the sound I'd been waiting all summer to hear; The drag screaming off my King rod. I quickly hit 'play' on the camera, and recorded my (very short) fight.
And that was it. The rod I was using was a bit overkill so there wasn't much of a fight. After all, it was the same rod that I pulled a 100lbs Tarpon in with in under 20 minutes. It also didn't help that the fish came straight to the boat. Next time I may switch it up to my usual light tackle. I also noticed that I'm in need of a bigger gaff. I just about got bit on the hand and in the knee while pulling that fish in the boat.
Since I had nothing to put the King in, I paddled back to shore to load him in the cooler in the truck. Unfortunately, the swells had picked up and there were 3-4ft breaking waves right on the beach so re-launching was out of the question. We called it a day and loaded the yaks back up around 0830. The fish weighed in right at 15lbs and fried up fantastically for dinner this evening.
Landing a King in the yak with me was a pretty big goal of mine and it felt great to finally do it. Now I get to sit back and scheme for my next challenge. I'm thinking Cobia from the yak?
After our success during the kayak tournament, my dad and I decided to give it another go in the Gulf. This time, however, I decided to bring only my fly rod and a big rod for Cobia.
Once again, we arrived at the beach just before sun rise and found that it was very calm. We soon had the yaks in the water and I began looking for the schools of spanish that we had seen two days prior. To my surprise, I couldn't find any. On Saturday, the Spanish were all over the place. It almost didn't matter where one cast. This day, however, they were few and far between. I decided that my best bet to land a Spanish on the fly would be to troll. I cast my 5 wt out to the side of the yak, stuck the rod in the holder, and went about paddling up and down the beach. It didn't take long before my rod was doubled over and I began fighting a fish. Almost immediately upon hook up, the fish took out drag and I learned the hard way to keep my knuckles clear of the reel handle. After a few minutes of fighting, I discovered that I didn't have my first Spanish hooked up on the fly rod. Instead, it was a Ladyfish.
They still put up a very good fight. The fight got rather interesting when my drag decided to fail. I may have had my drag set too loose, but when the fish finished making a long run, the reel backlashed and turned into a horrible nightmare. Fly line, much like other line or rope, tends to defy all laws of physics and can wrap itself around things in the most impossible ways. This was the case with my reel as I cursed at it in an attempt to untangle the mess. Meanwhile, my Ladyfish was busy attempting to wrap the rest of the line around my rudder directly behind me. After a few minutes I was forced to pull the fish into the boat by hand, release it, disassemble my reel, untangle the mess, and reassemble it.
With my reel now fixed, I went back to trolling and soon had another Ladyfish on. I passed my dad as he trolled the opposite direction of me and he told me that he had almost been spooled a few minutes prior. He said something grabbed his fly, started peeling line, and the hook just popped out when he was through over half his backing.
It wasn't long after this that I hooked, and finally landed, my first Spanish on the fly rod. It was satisfying to me in that I wasn't trolling for it. I had finally found a small school of Spanish and I was able to cast into the school and give the fly a few strips before the fish took it. After snapping a quick picture I let the fish go because I didn't really want to clean more fish.
To my dismay, I watched as the fish took a nose dive, sunk like a rock to the bottom, and flipped upside down...dead as a hammer. I have a problem with people wasting meat and this kinda upset me. I could see the fish rolling slightly in the surf about 10 ft below the yak. I grabbed my cobia rod with the big jig, and dropped it right underneath the boat. I knew it was a long shot, but I gave it a try and to my shock, I snatched the fish right off the bottom and brought it back to the boat. I could never do it again if I tried, and I'm still kicking myself for not taking a picture of -that-.
About an hour and a few fish later, I noticed what looked like a big boat wake a few hundred yards off the beach. I knew, however, that there had been no boats that morning so I started paddling towards it. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a big school of Menhaden. I started casting the Cobia jig into the school in hopes that -something- would pick it up. I was rather surprised that absolutely nothing touched it. Something had the school balled up on the surface, but they weren't interested in a big eel jig. I was kinda tired from the paddle out, so I flipped my fly back out behind the boat and started trolling. I trolled all the way back close to shore and around for about 15 minutes without a hook up. I decided to change flies since that one was obviously not working. When I reeled the line in, I was in for a shock.
A Cigar minnow. I'd never seen a live one before since we always just buy them frozen. I knew people could catch them on Sabiki rigs, but never thought one would hit a trolling fly. I decided to take the Cobia jig off the big rod and tie on a King rig. I hooked the Cig up to the big rod, cast it out behind the boat, and set the bait runner on. I paddled around for a few minutes looking for Spanish to cast the fly at and before I knew it, I heard the bait runner start to take line. My first thought was a King. I re-engaged the drag, set the hook, and started pulling in the fish with unfortunate ease. It ended up being a relatively big Spanish, but nothing more.
I got a chance to test out my underwater camera as well. I hooked a hardtail and didn't really care if I lost it so I stuck the camera in the water and started taking pictures. It was rather difficult, however, to snap good pictures in one hand while fighting a fish in the other.
I also took a short video that turned out pretty good aside from my finger being in the way.
And that ended the day. We kept about 7 Spanish, caught a bunch of Ladyfish, a few hardtails, and my dad discovered what we think was the near-spooling culprit. He handed a small Jack Crevalle and was nearly spooled again before we pulled the yaks out of the water. Chances are, it was big Jacks that he was hooking. The bite turned off pretty early and since the fish weren't as thick as they were two days before, we called it. I certainly can't wait to get back out there later in the summer. Hopefully, the Kings will be a bit thicker then.
The Gulf Coast Kayak Fishing Association (GCKFA) puts on a spring fishing tournament every year. This year happened the be the 6th annual tournament and my first time participating. It was actually my first time fishing in any sort of tournament.
I waited until the last minute, the VERY last minute to sign up for the tournament. I knew with my luck, the weather would have been absolutely awful if I preregistered, so I waited until the captain's meeting the night before the tournament to sign up. I was surprised at the amount of people who participated in the event. The tally came close to 150 kayakers from the Gulf Coast and some traveled from as far as Arkansas and New York to participate. My dad and I signed up Friday evening and went home to get everything ready that night.
The tournament had 1st, 2nd, and 3rd prizes for the following: Biggest Speckled Trout, Biggest Redfish, Biggest Flounder, Biggest Slam (Trout, Red, and Flounder combined), Biggest Spanish Mackerel, Biggest King Mackerel, and Biggest aggregate pair of King and Spanish. There was also a prize for the Redfish with the most spots.
My dad and I decided that we'd launch the kayaks in the Gulf Saturday morning and try to catch some King and Spanish. I also brought with me a bucket full of small bluecrabs to use for Redfish bait since I knew they were still being caught in the surf. The weather turned out to be beautiful (for the first time since I can remember) and the waves were perfectly manageable at 1 ft. high.
We launched the yaks at 5:45 and I immediately found Spanish ripping through schools of Glass Minnows just between the sandbars. I threw out a Gotcha lure with 3 inches of wire leader and....Nothing. I made another cast into a school of ravenous Spanish and once again...Nothing.
I've personally never had this particular phenomena happen. 99% of the time, you can throw whatever is in the tackle box at Spanish and they'll hit it. I mean anything. Gotchas, diamond jigs, Mr. Champs, Pompano Jigs, Soft plastic worms, Forceps, even an old shoe and they'll still clobber it if it's moving fast enough. I decided that it must have been the wire leader messing things up so I took it off. I immediately began catching fish. I threw a few small Spanish into the cooler before I lost my first lure of the day.
I certainly wasn't planning to go through almost EVERYTHING I had in my tackle box that morning. I put on a 30lb Flourocarbon leader on my lures and was still getting cut off. Spanish Mackerel prove to be a challenge at times because of their awesome set of choppers:
Over the course of the morning I lost 7 lures and had 3 jigs completely destroyed. It seemed like the smaller the lure, the better it worked. I actually started using little jigs for Crappie and Bluegill and soon had the reel screaming as a Spanish inhaled it.
I brought some frozen Cigar Minnows with me along with a big rod for Kings and just in case I ran into a Cobia. The kings weren't out and nothing touched my Cigs nor my dad's. While casting into schools of Spanish, I did hook a small snake King and got cut off. I didn't really worry about it at the time since it was a very small King. For a brief moment while fishing, I thought I was going to catch a Cobia. I looked down in the water at one point to see a big, dark fish swimming below the yak. I near-instantly had a blue crab sinking down toward the fish and it turned to take the bait. It was then that I got a good look at the fish: A remora. The biggest remora I've ever seen. It actually had 3 pilot fish trailing along with it. I wish now that I'd thought to take an underwater picture of the thing, but maybe next time. The Remora followed my yak around for about 30 minutes. I guess it thought I was a big yellow shark and it really wanted to attach itself to my yak's belly. The bite shut down around 10:00 and we headed back to the truck. The wind had also shifted to the south so we decided to go launch in the bay since weigh in's weren't until 3:00.
I've always known my kayak isn't particularly light. In fact, depending on how long of a day it's been, it weighs anywhere from 50 to 200 lbs. My yellow yak has obviously been eating well as my dad and I were forced to take several breaks while carrying it back to the truck. It's amazing how much weight a seat, cooler bag, and some rods and reels weigh. We went ahead and launched into the bay and paddled out to a near by wreck. I flipped out a my bottom rod and tried to catch a grouper. My dad did the same thing with is light spinning gear and it wasn't long before we received a sign...One that all saltwater fishermen know. A Hardhead Catfish.
Catching a catfish means "It's time to go, the fishing is now terrible", so we readied everything and began to paddle back to shore. I trolled a big King lure the whole way back and didn't have a nibble. I decided just before pulling the yak out of the water to try trolling a Gotcha along the drop off into deeper water. After only a few minutes, my drag started screaming and a big Ladyfish was jumping behind the kayak. I turned around and started to fight the fish when something unbelievable happened. An osprey came out of nowhere and dove onto my Ladyfish. I've seen them dive onto free swimming fish before, but never one on the end of my line. It's situations like this that make me wish I had a helmet camera so I could catch it all on film. Luckily, the Osprey missed (not without scratching the fish) and I landed the Ladyfish. Even though they're no good to eat, they put up a good fight and are known for their aerial acrobatics. It's no wonder they're often called "a poor man's Tarpon". I managed to land two more before may arms gave out from trolling and I headed back to the truck.
My dad and I were both exhausted and he wanted to go home to get some sleep so we dropped him off and I went down to Shorline Park in Gulf Breeze to attend the weigh in. I grabbed the two biggest Spanish that we caught and brought them to the scales.
We kept a total of 16 Spanish Mackerel and caught close to 30. Unfortunately, they were all quite small and almost cookie cutter replicas at 13 to 14 inches to the fork. I weighed in my fish and looked at the leaderboard to see that someone had caught a 5.75 lbs Spanish. Holy crap. It must have looked disgusting and misshapen.
Needless to say, I didn't place and the ogre Spanish won that division. I was shocked to find out that only 4 King Mackerel had been caught out of the 150 anglers. It's a shame that I lost that little snake King. Had I landed it, I would have been guaranteed a spot on the leaderboard and a prize (either a fish finder or a new rod and reel). My friend Alex won 2nd place for his 2.5 lbs flounder and 3 brand new Hobie fishing kayaks were given away along with a TON of door prizes. It was good that I went to the weigh in because my dad was drawn for a door prize and won some random kayak gear that I haven't even looked through yet.
Overall, the GCKFA Spring 2011 Kayak Fishing Tournament was a blast. Things were well run and there were great prizes given away. I did, however, feel as though there should be a few more species considered for possibly some smaller prizes. Cobia, Jack Crevalle, Pompano, Sheepshead, Bluefish, etc. I'm thankful that I participated in my first fishing tournament and I will definitely go next year. I think that had it not been for the tournament, I probably wouldn't have ever launched my kayak into the Gulf. It was our first time taking the yaks out into the Gulf and certainly won't be our last.
