Last January I had a great day fishing with my friends Gil and Ed. Since Tania was working, we made it a guy’s day. When I go fishing without Tania, I feel guilty as I know how much she loves fishing; however, she told me to go with my friends. I hope you all enjoy reading about our adventure.

January 22, 2022, Gil, Ed, and I made it on the water for a guys’ day fishing. The forecast was absolutely beautiful for January. 5kt NW wind with 1-2ft swells at 6 second. We made it to the dock about 7:00am. It was a nice brisk 52°F morning. We loaded up and headed out by 7:15am.

We decided to fish the beaches in search of Pompano, Spanish Mackerel, and Bluefish. Our first spot was just north of the Fort Pierce Inlet near Pepper Park. We were the first boat in the area, so we just looked for signs of life. It didn’t take long for us to see spinner sharks jumping all around and birds everywhere.

We turned the motor off and started drifting. Gil and I were using banana jigs tipped with shrimp and Ed was throwing a gotcha plug. On his first cast Ed hooked up. He landed a Jack Crevalle. Shortly after, Ed hooked up with another Jack. Gil hooked up with a Jack moments later. After Gil and Ed had a bunch of Jacks under their belt, I finally landed my first fish, a small white grunt.

We drifted north of the inlet for about 30 minutes. Even though we caught a lot of fish, we didn’t have anything in the cooler, so we decided to move. We decided to headed south towards the inlet. Within a minute at the new spot, Ed and Gil had Jacks on. Not much further into the drift, Ed and Gill hooking up again. I finally hooked up and landed a small Spanish mackerel. I was excited as it was the first targeted species on the boat.

Gil hooked up with something big and it started pulling line quickly. Whatever it was, it was large and when it broke the surface it was dark color. We all got excited thinking it might be a Cobia. Gil was fishing with a Penn Battle II 3000 and the fish started to spool him. I started up the boat and we chased it down. When we finally got it to the boat it turned out to be a very large Spotted Eagle Ray. The ray didn’t like came up next to the boat and it took off once again. This time it pulled about 80 yards of line from Gil and then his braid broke. It was disappointing that we lost so much line but not much we could do.

At this point we decided to head south of the inlet and see if we could find less trash fish and more fish to bring home. Although, had I knew then what I know now about Jack Crevalle we would have had a cooler full for fish dip!

We got to about Blue Heron beach and the water was such a beautiful powder blue, so we stopped and started fishing. We ended up catching 4 bluefish and a bunch of Jack Crevalle. Shortly after we arrived the bite completely died off, so we moved further south.

We continued to run south and fish as we saw life all the way to the boils. Every time we stopped, we would catch a few fish and then the bite would stop. Once at the boils we were hopeful to catch a ton of fish, but we were disappointed. We only had a handful of bites in about 30 minutes. We did land and keep two Spanish Mackerels, but the bite was few and far between.

At this time, we decided to fish the beach on the way back home. We pretty much chased the Spanish Mackerels the whole way home. We ended up running out of bait about 1pm so we headed back to the dock.

We came home with 6 Bluefish, 12 Spanish Mackerels, and 1 Pompano. All in all, we all had a great day on the water with great company. It was great getting back out with Ed and Gil after a month since our last trip.

Tania and I pray all who make it out the rest of the week have a blessed and safe trip and may your catch be bountiful. May you all have tight lines and good times!