Today, Tania and I went fishing with my friend Ron and his cousin Patricia. With light southwest winds and calm seas, we chose one of our favorite spots, a place that always provides a good bite.

Because of the time change, I told Ron to meet us at the dock by 6:30 am. My alarm was set for 5:15 am, but I didn’t wake up until 5:45. Tania and I hurried to get ready, grabbed ice and shrimp on the way, and arrived at the dock right at 6:30am Unfortunately, Ron and Patricia got there before us. I usually like to be early with everything loaded, but today we made it just in time.

Once we arrived at the dock, we met up with Ron and Patricia, loaded the boat, and left around 6:45 am. While heading to the Boils, we saw many birds and bait busting the surface of the water, so we stopped and cast a few times to see what we could catch. I caught the first fish, a nice-sized whiting, which surprised me. We stayed here for about 15 minutes, during which we caught three 6-inch Crocker, which went into the live well, along with a few whiting and a weakfish. 

Since the bite was slow at this spot, I decided to push on to the Boils. When we finally arrived, we were one of two boats there. The boat that beat us was on the west side of the Boils, which was perfect because we wanted to fish the buoy on the east side. Our first drift was productive, although most of what we caught was small jacks. I was hoping for at least some larger jacks, but we were all having fun. 

We fished the boils until about 10:30 am, and it was a pretty productive day. We caught countless jacks, blue runners, lane snapper, various ladyfish, a few Spanish mackerel, and a pompano. But Ron was asking for more fish to take home, so I decided to move to our black margate spot. 

Our Margate spot didn’t let us down. By noon, we had gone through four dozen shrimp and had a cooler full of margates and a few snapper. While Ron and Tania used up the last of the shrimp, I put circle hooks on our bigger rods since I wanted to use the croaker at the inlet on the way back. 

We reached the inlet around 12:15 pm, with two rods set up and ready. When we arrived at the north point, I had Tania cast her bait at the rocks, while I cast my rod on the other side of the boat and handed it to Ron. I was planning to drive the boat while we drifted in. About 10 minutes later, Ron got a big hit, but I forgot to tell him he had a circle hook on, so he yanked the hook out of the fish’s mouth. During this, Tania got broken off. Unfortunately, the last bait wasn’t very lively and died before we caught anything. 

Around 12:45 pm, we headed back to the dock. It turned out to be a great day, and we had a cooler full of meat. It was a fun trip to the grocery store. We got back to the dock around 1:00 pm, and once we unloaded the boat, I started cleaning all the fish. It took me nearly thirty minutes to clean the table full of fish. We kept six black margate, three lane snapper, two whiting, two Spanish mackerel, one weakfish, and one pompano. 

All in all, we had an excellent day on the water with great company. Tania and I send our best wishes to all our fellow anglers. May your time on the water be safe, blessed, and filled with tight lines and good memories. Until next time, keep casting, keep believing, and keep chasing those dreams on the water.

The Treasure Coast Chapter of Salt Strong now hosts monthly meetings at Islamorada Brewery and Distillery on the 4th Tuesday of each month, except November and December due to the holidays. These meetings offer members a variety of benefits, including guest speakers and fellowship with local anglers who share their knowledge and help one another catch fish. Membership to Salt Strong includes a 20% discount on tackle, access to Smart Fishing spots, and insider information on local trends. To learn more about Salt Strong, click the link below for a FREE 30-day trial.