With a northeast current over three knots and a twenty knot wind trying to push that current back, it promised to be a "HANG ON" kind of day. Dr Mike was the only one of his group that was brave(?) enough to desire going out with captain Dave to see what fish were out there to be caught.
What they found was a color change in 160 ft with lots of hungry sailfish tailing down sea along side it. Dr Mike let Joe (our FWC scientist on board) catch his first sail and second sail ever! As Mike told me at the dock "I've caught a thousand of them, it was fun watch someone catch one that had never caught a sail before".
They finish up the day  by catching a pile of snapper and then headed home a little early, tired but happy.

Well, I got called out of retirement today, Dave had to go out of town for the day and I filled in ii his absence. Bill, Tom and Scott have fished with us a number of times before and we always have a great time fishing with them.
I felt like I got really lucky on getting this day to fish on because the current was perfect  the water was dirty and the wind was light. We caught over 20 yellowtails (most of the over 20 inches), one nice mutton, a smaller mutton and one kingfish. Overall, great fishing with good people on a picture perfect day.

Dave fished with uncle Jim the other day, Jim is 89 years young and a very good angler. He has obviously spent a bunch of those years with a rod and reel in his hands. Bob and Glen were also along to help with the catching and they did a lot of that, catching over 20 yellowtails in a couple hours. They looked hard for a sailfish after catching snapper but did not find a hungry one.

Not a huge sail but a sailfish none the less.

Talked to Cp today and he told me they tried the wahoo thing early with no takers so captain Dave took them out to some of the deep drop spots where they found the silk snapper biting.  Dave put together a beautiful catch of silks and even found a few vermillon snapper to add to the pot. The boys have one more day (Thursday) before they have to return to the cold north till next year this time.

Year after year these same four guys show up on MLK weekend to harass the captain and mate, drink some beers and just forget about the world for a few days.
We have seen some changes over the years with the guys, had some very sad times with lost love ones, fed off Pat's strength as he fought to recover from his stoke, saw a marriage lost but a stronger one built, and through all those events (and more) the laughter, the support and the true friendship continued. Pat, Dick CP and Ed you guys are the "bomb", true friends that I have enjoyed fishing with over all these past 15 years and I look forward to riding along occasionally on your future trips so I can hassle you for a change.
Captain Dave and Mitch had a great day Thursday with the guys, power trolling for the yellowtails and caught a few of the great eating yellow jacks as icing on that stack of fine snapper fillets.

A sailfish, some other hard fighters and a bunch of snapper made for great day for Young Song and his family. The Song family is more of our repeat folks that come down from Chicago to escape the cold.

CP got to be our first guest of 2023 as he put together another great catch of snapper to start the year out.  CP spent a lot of time putting his new year resolutions together so he needed some help in the fish catching department  but he was able to get that from the crew so it all worked out.
Looking forward to a great year and seeing the Jersey boys (with CP) back here in mid January.