The FishermanTraveling

by Capt. Bouncer Smith

Hot! Hot! Hot!

at’s how the song starts. August starts and ends that way too. at said, I suggest you start early and quit early, or sh nights. Let’s start early and have a couple planers baited with lures over ballyhoo and a couple lures over strips on the riggers before daylight. Trolling these rigs at 7-8 knots are prime for a wahoo lunch or dinner. If you can’t handle that early morning thing then play the same game from sundown till full dark.

If bait is too much work, then replace the baits with diving plugs at 10 knots or high-speed lures at 15 knots.

Last summer we made two-night trips for sword sh o Miami Beach. We shed from 8:30 PM till 2:30 AM each night using rigged squids on 3 lines. Our total catch was a big night shark, 10 pound black n tuna and a 120 pound sword sh shing under a star lled sky with comfortable temperatures and calm waters.

If snappers are your game, then the darker the night, the better the shing. Mutton snapper are frequently very active in the late a ernoon. Yellowtail don’t mind the sunlight but are careless in the dark and gray snappers prefer midnight or close to it. en of course the biggest of all snapper, the cubera, can be active from before dark to the wee hours of the morning.

Inshore, snook and cubera are around the inlets day and night, but give me a low outgoing tide in the late a ernoon for the best action. Remember these snook are in a spawning phase, so keep them in the water while removing your circle hook with bait or your barbless hooks on lures.

Did you know bone sh tail at night? ey even eat ies in the dark. It’s mostly a wading game and working toward city lights. e lights help you spot the tails dancing in the backlight. e big tarpon have mostly moved north for the summer, but the juvenile tarpon will be ghting over a space in the dock light and HydroGlow lights with the snook and moon sh. All these sh like real small ies.

What would August be without lobsters? Boat very carefully in waters appropriate for lobster divers day or night. If you don’t dive and have a shallow dra boat, then ask Capt Harry Vernon how to bully net lobsters. Hang that HydroGlow light o the bow, get in shallow and grab that bully net. I almost forgot to tell you about my most recent shing trip.

I met up with California twin brothers Cal and Conrad at Indian Pass below Apalachicola to try for tarpon. We ran 20 miles NW along the coast and back along the beach without seeing a sh. Back within a half mile of the ramp the pass was full of tarpon. Every dri with live pin sh produced red sh from 15 to over 20 pounds. I kept trying lures to no avail. 7 or 8 big reds, a couple small sharks and cat sh later. With a lunar minor period upon us, I decided to try a pin sh.

I rigged my rod and requested a pin sh passed up from the livewell. e report was that we were about out of bait and a beat up, red nned pin sh was past to me. I hooked it up through the lips and cast it out.

In just a minute or two I got a pickup. A quick drop back and I locked up my Penn low pro le Fathom bait caster.

A huge tarpon ripped across the surface peeling out drag. e guys cleared their lines, red up the boat and gave chase. A er ten minutes I passed my rod o to Conrad. ese guys were dying to ght a tarpon, not watch. Nearly 3 hours later when Conrad grabbed the leader and popped o that tarpon both 67 year old twins had all the tarpon ght they wanted for that day.

Capt Bouncer Smith

305-439-2475 captbouncer@bellsouth.net