It’s been a while since Tania has felt up to going fishing. I checked the weather on Saturday, and it called for 10-15kt winds, but when I looked at Windy it showed 8kt winds. Tania agreed we could go out for the morning. We arrived at the dock about 7:10am and we had a few folks in front of us, so we had to wait for our boat.

While we waited for our boat, I tossed the Moon Walker top water bait. About the 4^th cast, I had a nice size jack follow the bait to the dock; however, it just swam away as it saw us on the dock. It made a pretty good boil and there was a gentleman standing near who saw and gasped. I just held my breath hoping I had a fight on my hands!

With the foul weather we have had over the past week we weren’t sure what to expect. We had an outgoing tide with an incoming current since the tide had just shifted. We started off along the wall west of the waste treatment plant. I was hoping to put Tania on a Snook. We fished here for about 30 minutes, without a bite. I was highly disappointed, but when we left the dock, the dockhand told us it’s been slow fishing over the past week, so it wasn’t unexpected.

Next, we moved to the Smithsonian Dock. Due to the current and tide we fished the west side of the dock. The bite was slow along the dock, so I casted to the piling near the dock and quickly hooked up with a 15in Sheepshead. I was excited to put a fish in the cooler, but It’s never a good sign when I catch the first fish. All my friends will tell you if I catch the first fish of the day the rest of the day the bite will be slow. A short while later I caught a decent size Mojarra, which I ended up throwing back as I thought I would catch more Sheepshead. Unfortunately, that was not the case.  

At this point I could see Tania was getting frustrated as she hadn’t even gotten a bite and I had caught two fish. I told her to come back to the piling and try since I caught two fish pretty quickly. Well, that didn’t work out too well as Tania still didn’t get a bite. We fished here another 20 minutes before we moved.

By the time we moved the current finally shifted to outgoing so we moved to the east side of the dock. This is usually the side we do the best. Well not today, as we fished the east side of the dock for 30 minutes with only a couple bites.

I decided to move us to the open area just south of Harbor Isle. There are quite a few sail boats anchored there which made it difficult to get to some of our favorite spots without being right on the anchored boats. I managed to get us on one of our spots and Tania finally started catching fish. In the 30 minutes we fished this spot Tania caught a small Jack Crevalle, a few short Mutton Snapper, and a Lane Snapper. While I only caught a short Mutton Snapper.

Since the current and wind were both going the same direction, we decided to do a drift and see if we could catch anything. We started south of the South Causeway Bridge and went all the way north to the barges north of the Turn Basin. The water was pretty dirty so I figured we would at least catch some catfish, but we didn’t even get a bite.

I ended up spot locking on the three pilings along the northeast shore of the Turn Basin in hopes of catching something. But once again it seemed like the fish were not interested in our baits. We fished here about 15 minutes before I moved us to the day marker near the inlet.

We fished the day marker for about 20 minutes at which point we ran out of bait. There was a lot of action, unfortunately it was all short Mangrove Snapper, so we did not add anything to our cooler. It was right about 11:00am when we started back to the dock. While we were at the day marker the wind really kicked up. If I had to guess I would say it was 15+ knots.

When we returned to the marina, we called the dock, and they told us to hold as the docks were full. Since we had to wait, I positioned us in one of the cuts going out of the marina and we jigged. Tania had a couple of bites, but nothing committed. I expected us to catch some snapper, but we only jigged for a short while before the dock was clear and we started heading back in.

We returned to the dock about 11:25am with a 15in Sheepshead in the cooler. It was a lot of work for only one fish, but it was a great morning spent with my best friend! I missed fishing with her, and I felt bad I couldn’t put her on more fish because it’s been a while since she was on the boat.

All in all, we had a blessed day spent together and we came home with a meal. Tania and I pray all who made it out over the weekend had a blessed and safe trip. We pray for everyone going out this week that you have tight lines and good times.

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