Our daughter Tori and her boyfriend, Scott, came to visit Tania and I. We got a boat for today and the weather looked like it would cooperate for us to get offshore. I haven’t been fishing in our area in a few weeks but the reports have been showing lots of snappers being caught. I was excited about the possibility to catch some fish tacos. Our daughter doesn’t like going offshore when its rough so I have been monitoring the weather all week. Unfortunately, this morning when I woke up, I checked the weather buoy and saw the swell was 2.6ft at 6 seconds and the winds were forecasted 10-15kts so we decided to go to the boils. Tania woke up not feeling well so she stayed in bed.

We arrived at the dock about 6:30am, and our boat was already checked out and waiting for us. I have to give a huge shout out to the Freedom Boat Club dockhands for being so quick this morning. We loaded up and headed out around 6:45am. Our first stop was Wardaddy Baits, to get some pilchards! Wardaddy really hooked us up with some great baits this morning.

We made it out the inlet and it was pretty calm. With the west wind I didn’t expect too much chop near shore. We made it to the boils pretty quickly and set up to drift near shore east. I handed Tori Tania’s rod with 30g jig tipped with shrimp and had her start fishing. Before I could get Scott’s rod baited up Tori was fighting something large. I grabbed the net and walked up front to talk Tori through landing the fish. It was big surprise to see a large redfish pop up. We haven’t landed a redfish in a long while.

The bite was pretty slow today but it was steady. We made many drifts and caught fish on every drift. We had one line on bottom with a pilchard, one line with a pilchard on top and three lines with jigs tipped with shrimp. I lost several fish on the bottom pilchard, one was a shark that broke the line, about 20 ft from the boat as it jumped out of the water and rolled. The kids were excited to see the shark, although disappointed I didn’t land it for them to get a closer look. Tori also lost a larger fish on the jig tipped with shrimp. Whatever she had tore up the 30lb leader. Scott also landed a decent size black margate, which we decided to bring home.

About 8:30am the winds shifted to more of a southwest wind and really kicked up. The increased wind made the water more rough and choppy. We continued to fish the boils until 10:00am at which point it became a bit too rough for Tori. Since we still had quite a few pilchards left I decided to head to the inlet and try for a snook or two.

The ride back to the inlet wasn’t horrible but we did get wet a few times. When we arrived at the inlet it was an outgoing tide with a southwest wind, so I went inside the inlet to drift out. It was too rough in the inlet for Tori to want to fish, so Scott was the only one fishing. I drove the boat and kept us drifting safely.

A few minutes into the drift, Scott’s rod doubled over. I backed the boat up to pull us away from the rocks as Scott fought the fish. Once I took the boat out of gear the fish jumped and I knew Scott had a snook on the line. Scott did a great job fighting the snook to the boat and was really excited once I got it in the net. The snook was 27 inches, not the largest fish Scott has caught, but he did say it was the best fighting fish he has ever caught.

We continued to drift another 30 minutes with no more fish landed. Scott did hook up with another fish, much larger than his snook; however, it boke him off shortly after the fight began.

All in all we had a great day on the water. I had hoped for more than just one fish to come home, but it wasn’t meant to be. Scott and Tori felt it was a great day fishing, even though the bite was slow. Tania and I pray all who made it out today and have plans to go out this weekend have safe and blessed trips. May you have tight lines and good times!

The Treasure Coast Chapter of Salt Strong is now holding monthly meetings in Fort Pierce. The meetings are being held on the 4^th Thursday of the month. The next meeting will be June 22^nd. These club meeting are for inside members only. If you would like to become an inside member here is what the membership includes: access to the in-person meetings as well as all the other perks such as 20% off all tackle, Smart Fishing spots, and insider information on trends in your area. We will also have guest speakers at our meetings and we will be holding monthly tournaments. Click the link below to get a FREE pack of slam shady or a 10-Day Test-Drive of The Smart Fishing Spots App and The Salt Strong Insider Club . . . And We’ll Ship You $35 Worth of FREE Lures, an “Inshore Fishing Manifesto” Book (Physical copy) & Decals – Yours to Keep Even If You Cancel!