Sometimes, even with the help of a fish finding and stock trading dog, catching fish can be a challenge. Saturday was one of those days. Elliott, Brody, and I launched the boat at 6:30 in the morning. Our plan was to run offshore and target Wahoo in 180-feet of water. The weather was crisp. Cool enough that that I put on a light jacket for the run offshore. Upon exiting the jetties, we encountered rough, washing machine like conditions. So, we decided to try vertical jigging for Grouper a little closer to shore in 90 feet of water.
On the ride to our first Grouper spot, I could tell Brody was feeling a little seasick. You are asking, how does one know your dog is seasick? Because Brody threw up on my shoes. Twice! Thankfully, he began to feel a little better upon our arrival at a ledge 24-miles offshore. Well, at least he stopped throwing up. However, he was in no condition to help us find fish. For the next two hours, Elliott and I dropped jigs to the ledge. We could see schools of fish on the depth finder but only managed to catch one Grouper. Sea conditions continued to be rough, and Brody gave me the “this is not fun” look. So, we called it a day.
On the ride back, the ocean laid down as we approached shore. Brody started barking. This got my attention, and I scanned the horizon. A school of Atlantic Bonito was feeding aggressively a couple of hundred yards ahead of us. I pulled back the throttles and Elliott grabbed a spinning rod rigged with a Shimano 21-gram Colt Sniper jig. We let the boat drift near the school and Elliott made a long cast into the feeding frenzy. Boom! Fish on.
We enjoyed non-stop action with the Bonito until we got tired of catching them. They were not the target species, but we had a blast catching and releasing them. Other than Brody being seasick and me needing a new pair of shoes, it was a very good day.