Port Canaveral Offshore 08-16-10
Capt. Henry Hauch
August 18, 2010
Port Canaveral - Saltwater Fishing Report
Fishing Report 07-16-10 (Monday)
Nice weather again despite a few dark clouds to the east meant smooth sailing in and out. It was not a great "keeping" day but a good catching one. Along with plenty of fish caught were several nice sightings. This would have made a better "ECO" trip than fishing! Our trip out led to our first sighting, though a little too
close for comfort. A whale surfaced immediatly in front of us, while we were cruising at 40mph, leading us to make a rapid change of direction. It was getting light though the sun was still not up, so a lot of detail was not seen. We only saw about 20' of the whale, which appeared to be a charcoal color. It also appeared to have a very small dorsal fin. Right Whales are not usually here this time of year anyhow, so I am still trying to determine what type it was. This was just south and east of 8A in about 90'
of water. My guest were thrilled about seeing it, but ready to head out and fish.
We continued out to deeper water to try the AJ hole that has been producing so well recently. Our arrival did not mark the fish in their usuall place, but a little adjustment found some. The water temp's at the bottom have warmed up, so these fish were holding closer to the bottom now. Our verticle jig's were not getting the results of only a week ago, and though we had a few live bait hits, no hookups, at least not AJ's. We did catch several of those "Rare" and "Overfished" Red Snapper however. We caught these on live Pinfish at about 50' down, in 125' of water. One Red Snapper was caught on a live Pinfish that we flatlined out the back of the boat suspended only 10' below the surface in 125' waters! There numbers are expanding so quickly with the lack of population control that they are moving out of their typical domain to find food. Though we sadly returned the Red Snapper to the ocean, we did catch several nice sized "Red" Snapper that we could keep (for now), Vermillion. We had AJ's follow most catch's up, but reluctant to bite, with the exception of a few hookups on smaller jigs cast while retriving another fish. These all broke off, and we decided to head on for other game. The weather bouy had a ton of bait fish, and Cuda, but a few pass's by and some vertical jigging resulted in nothing but Cuda, and a few lost jigs. One Cuda was very acrobatic, taking a "Cuda-Tube" and making a leap that was at least 20' long in frount of the boat.
Out to deeper waters we went. A nice weedline was found at 220', though water temps at
the surface read 91.5. We sent out a few artifical's behind the boat and started along the line. Not long after this a Mahi was seen grazing under the weeds, so after we allowed our plugs to pass by, we turned to try a pitch tod. We started to retrieve our lines, and as the diving plug was being brought to the boat a Sailfish followed it to within 10' of the boat. We tried a few things, but with abundant natural bait around he quickly took off. No more sightings of the Mahi was made, so we blind cast some plugs, jigs and live bait in the general are, with no results. We continued on along the weedline, with another Sailfish batting at a ballyhoo, but no hookup. We were nearing a deeper site to try again for AJ's, so our lines came in.
Our drift was a little too much for our jigs, and even live bait put down had little results. With no fish marking, we decided to move in to a little shallower water. We hit a few sites on the way in with little activity on the sonar, and with the day nearing its end, decided to head for Port. A Mola was spotted about 16 miles east of Port, and we took a little time viewing and trying to get pictures of it. I was tempted to dive in for some underwater shots, but did not feel like returning to Port and cleaning fish while still dripping wet. Hundreds of Dolphin were seen on this trip also, from
the common Spotted to the smaller oceanatic red bellies. A lot of activity was seen along the
weed line, from Tuny's and small sharks, lots of baitfish and birds. It would have been nice to
start the trip working the line rather than starting it after noon as the water temp's rose. Maybe next trip I'll head out first to see if its still around.
The last item of note was a report made to the USCG about a possible sighting of a Reddish-Brown
substance suspended below the surface over a large area. We had passed this area both on the
way out and in with no such sighting, so hopefully it proves to be something other than what is on many peoples minds.
Captain Henry
ACME Ventures Fishing
www.ACME-Ventures-Fishing.com
321-794-7955
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