Apollo Beach was cold and foggy; near the power plant the water temps were mid 70's; probably upper 60's by the markers. Low tide wasn't uber low this time around. Cownose rays and puffers aside it was about 7-8 decent sized Jacks and one big ol' something that I didn't want to tangle with. I was hauling a bunch of stuff in the canoe because I was to lazy to move things around and my buddy would be with me later in the morning - so no kayak this time.
Details
This makes for nice cheesy sound effects while reading...boku velveta.
Holy poop was it foggy. It was so foggy I took out a) my light, b) my horn. I pushed out solo into the unknown and figured how bad can this be...all I have to do is get across the channel, pop in the anchor pin and start fishing. I kept a good eye on the hazy yet somewhat visible marker and decided to paddle towards it. Half way across I looked down at my tackle box and decided to do a quick rearrange - by the time I looked up I couldn't see the marker, much less anything else. It's pretty eerie being lost and although not my first time in the fog, this was the first time I was "lost". Below are some sample shots of the fog.
I knew I had a compass so I wasn't exactly fearful, but all senses were on high alert. Soon enough a breeze blew through and I saw a moving boat as well as the marker I wanted to head to. I would hunker here until my buddy showed up and we would man the canoe. I fished for a bit and hooked a big ol' something - I suspect shark or giant ray as the entire boat swung around as line peeled out; after about 5 minutes of realizing whatever it was was too big for me to solo handle I held the spool and promptly broke off - today was not the day to be fooling around with anything that big. It's possible it was a manatee, but it was moving at a good clip and had a lot of mass. Definitely not a cobia, tarpon maybe but no jumps. Fish 1 - me 0; my buddy called me on the cell and I paddled back. Course I couldn't find him in the fog until he was about 50 feet away.
We paddled out and didn't do much of anything but get comfortable in the fog and pitch Hogy black eels. After a about 1.5 hours of a whole lot of nothing I figured we would ditch the armada near the plant and venture out over the heavily blanketed fog. We found A HUGE school of rays - much bigger than last week; after paddling towards it I saw some Jacks pounding the water. I figured some quick action would be fun. I tied on a silver spoon and pitched into the mass - no sooner had it hit was the drag singing. Cool...fish 1 me 1; I unhooked and pitched in again; hooked up immediately, but oddly the line went limp. WTH? I reeled and and the treble hook had broken completely off the lure. This was a brand new spoon so I was pretty peeved; regardless, I rerigged and threw in again and was promptly rewarded with another Jack. I did this often enough that we landed about 5 more. Sample size below...
Obligatory action shot....
After a while I decided to try out one of eels and see what would happen. Hoping for a trailing Cobia, I pitched towards a large ray and let it sit on the bottom. Couple twitches later and I was on the Apollo Beach Sleigh Ride - to bad it was a HUGE Cownose ray and not a Cobia. I tired the ray out and only then would I venture near the lure. Course I had managed to leave my dehooker at home so pliers it was...I had visions of Steve Irwin and catching the business end of the tail, but this puppy was pretty worn out. It was so worn out I pictured a shark coming along for an easy meal and in this neck of the woods there's plenty. I managed to get my eel back relatively quickly and watched it quasi swim off. I suspect it became dinner for someone...
We caught a couple more Jacks, but with the exception of one guide whom I told the Jacks are on, oddly no one else seemed to be catching. We called it a day and figured this is what it must be like to fish in CA - fog banks and cold. WTH??
Cobias still elude me...curses. I'll be back. Until then..."Stay out of the fog!!"
