Winds from 6-19 knots , multiple directions gulf stream 11 miles from Sand Key 5 miles from Looe key
We went to Miami Beach and didn’t end up getting home till early Saturday morning. I still convinced Catherine to get up and try to make out for the high tide, we ended up missing it by about a half hour and reached the edge of the reef around a 11. The skies where dark and the visibility sucked around 20 feet tops, at Sand Key so we headed east . There was a water spout in the distance. Once we got past the 9 foot stake the vis jumped up to 40-50 feet , so we jumped in. We shot a large margate, hog snapper, yellow jack and a barracuda (for my neighbors stone crab traps) . When we left the dock the wind was about 10-12 knots by about 1 in the afternoon it had increased to 19 knots from the south. The wind opposite the tide going out was making some pretty big waves on the reef, the vis was dropping quickly down to less then 20 so we called it day and headed in. A little bit after we got home I checked the weather buoy and the wind had dropped to 8 knots.
Woke up and checked the wind today, 8 knots so determined to try to catch some of the clear water we saw yesterday on the high tide we got up and ran east. There was definite color change about 3 or 4 miles south of key west but the water didn’t really clear up, it kind of sucked. visibility of maybe 15-20. So we headed west and the water seemed to get clearer, the exact OPPOSITE as the day before. Unfortunately due to my lack of preparation , we did not have enough gas to run very far west and we had to be satisfied with hitting some patches in front of the key west. Didn’t see a lot of fish. I ran the boat while Catherine target practiced on small fish. Once she got tired of swimming I did some drifts and didn’t really see anything to shoot. We were both kind of beat from the day before and the nigh before that, so we called it a day.
I found out that the Aimrite venom trigger doesn’t work that well with 300# mono, it makes it kind of bitch to load. I’m still up in the air about the new venom, I have gotten more used to it and does shoot far and accurately. I have shot a couple fish now at pretty surprising distances, it just is a pain to load. Not the bands it’s the new rail, its not very deep and the shaft constantly falls out when I am loading it. I don’t remember having this issue with the older version. Maybe with a bit more practice it will go away.
