Day Oh!
Capt. John Rivers
June 20, 2008
Pensacola - Saltwater Fishing Report
Would you like a banana?" Kara asked. I turned around quickly and said, "Who brought bananas?" I couldn't believe my eyes! She was holding up a bushel of the little yellow devils.
My crew today consisted of Steve Haines, his wife Kara, John Puia, and Dale Tinner. They were all in town for a wedding this weekend, and wanted to experience some great Pensacola fishing. It was supposed to be a big party trip of ten people, so I called my good buddy, Capt. George Ballard, and he was able to help me split the trip up into two boats.
At the boat ramp only eight showed, which made for a little easier day in the long run. We made our way out to the bait boat, loaded up on cigar minnows, and made our way out into the gulf for what we hoped would be a great day of fishing. And that's when the bananas showed up. I told them about the myth, but they were not the superstitious sort, at least when it came to fruit and fishing. I was only a little worried, but I figured they were already on the boat, so we just crossed our fingers, ate bananas, and fished.
We were slow trolling live cigs with and without skirts and the kings seemed like they couldn't get enough. Our first two knockdowns did not produce any fish, as one was a short strike and the other one pulled the hook. I glanced over at the rotting banana peels. Our third and fourth strikes were successful hookups, and we boated two nice keeper kings. Whew!
George was also having a banner day, (not to be confused with a banana day), and we were red hot on kings for a solid 4 hours. We lost more than I wanted to due to short strikes. After we boated a few more keeper kings, we hit a few inshore wrecks for some tasty snapper. Both parties were having a great time bowing up on fish.
But the prize of the day came at the end when I heard one of George's clients ask, "Is that a shark?" Now both George and I were only about 15 feet away from each other fishing the wreck and when George's client spotted this supposed shark, George said, "Feed him the cigar minnow." George and I both knew we had a cobia within our grasp. The first guy dropped his bait in the water and the fish ate, but the angler jerked it out of the ling's mouth. Then the kid on his boat dropped his bait in front of the fish, and the fish ate again, but again the bait was yanked out of the fish's mouth. During this time, I was on my way over to George's boat to check out this cobia. I hoped my clients would get a chance at the cobia, and I nodded over at George, and he said to have at it. I tossed out a live cigar minnow and the fish mouthed it and spit it out. Bananas! So I grabbed another rod, cut the line, removed the weight and hook, retied the line to the swivel and tied on a 3oz Spro Chartreuse Buck tail jig, tossed it out, and that's all it took. I handed the rod to my new friend and banana buddy, Kara, and she played the fish like a pro. After a few minutes we had it in close enough to gaff.
So as of June 20th, 2008, the first official day of summer, the MEGA-BITE is now banana proof!!
Tight Lines everyone!
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