Q: Daytona offshore fishing

[CHOMPERS]

My friend and I just finished with sea trials and repairs on his boat. It has finally checked out and we are going fishing offshore with it for the first time. We are no strangers to fishing the Gulf of Mexico, but this is the first time going in the Atlantic.

Does anyone have any pointers such as location or depth, and what types of bait? Anything will be appreciated.

 

[MrRngr94]

I have a cousin that fishes off of there all the time. I'll ask him.

 

[CHOMPERS]

We lucked upon a natural reef called the Nine Mile Reef. It streaches from Jacksonville to Daytona. A guy in the Gander Mountain around the corner from my house told us about it but called it the Seven Mile Reef. It was six miles offshore. The sharks and fish don't care what you call it, just as long as you feed them. We were hooking up to a shark every five minutes. They started small like two feet and under, but they progressively got larger. The largest we hauled up to the boat was a five foot black tip shark. We took turns fighting it for almost an hour. We didn't have a fighting belt on board so we had to granny fight it after our abdomens were pulverized.

Btw, the sharks go nuts over dead squid and dead sardines. We also caught some small bait fish (6" croakers) that they went crazy over.

We also hooked up to some larger fish that we never got to see. I had a 100# trolling rod onboard with a Penn Senator 6.0 that had the drag cranked down. Most of the sharks would only pull one or two clicks on the drag. While I was fighting a red snapper, something hooked up to that rod. It bent it over like it was light tackle and pealed line off of it like there was no tomorrow. It made two runs like that and then cut the 100# test as if it was just toying with us.

We are going back with heavier tackle tonight to even the score.

 

[ewurm]

Sounds like a good time. I hooked an 18" Pike this weekend and lost it at the boat. Not quite the same thing.

 

[gman]

you probably had a big grouper that took your snapper for a snack. The goliath grouper down there can get over 1000 lbs.

 

[CHOMPERS]

Thanks to spearfishing and over harvesting, Jewfish or Goliath Grouper are rare to be seen over 75 pounds. New regulations and catch & release are helping. However, it will be fifty years before real goliaths are in Florida's waters again.

 

[CHOMPERS]

Last night was a wash. The waves were much higher than reported. Getting out the inlet, the waves magnify to over double the reported height. The report was 3-5 feet, but we were seeing consistent five feet with chop everywere. Our boat is 19 feet and becomes a cork in the water when the waves pick up. Getting out of the inlet when the waves are 2-4 feet, the inlet crossing is typically 6-10 feet with a period of about 25 feet (really bad for a small boat). Getting out can be hell on the nerves and we were not going to fool around trying in 3-5 foot seas.

We went home and tried again in the afternoon. The waves died down but remained really choppy. We were tossed around quite a bit and my friend eventually tossed his cookies. Fishing sucked the whole day. I guess no one told the fish we were coming. The sharks were a dime a dozen but we wanted something to take home. We tried some shark meat, but it still had that shark funk smell and taste. We threw all of the sharks back. We caught several dozen but they were all small (pups to three feet). If I ever convert my swimming pool to salt, I'll stock it with sharks But until then, I'll keep throwing them back. The only thing I brought home was a sunburn.