top-water trout bite, ending with sharks for toothy photos

Capt. John Rivers — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 10:50:58 GMT

This is how we fished last week: throwing top-water for ladyfish and trout in the morning on the flats, and ending the trip with a few sharks boat side for toothy photos.

The king bite for the past couple weeks was still not much to bother fooling with, but a few of my captain buddies told me this weekend that the kings are starting to come out in full force, so next week should be interesting. Although I was anxious for the king bite to turn back on, I decided to target sharks for a few days. On my last afternoon trip, we hooked up 18 sharks and landed 12.

This big beast broke my gaff when I went to try and get him boat side. So I had to pull out the small 2ft gaff. I never pull big sharks like this in the boat; I just keep them on the side so if I need to let go they go back in the drink. What a catch-- a 5ft Blacktip. The shark bite is on! Clay was all smiles after he landed this toothy beast!

On my morning trip that same day, we hooked up 12 and landed 9. My shark hole was producing some quality fish. Most of the sharks are around 2 – 3 ft, but a few have been around 5 – 6 ft. We even boated a five-foot hammerhead, which we hoped wasn’t hanging out with his larger cousins.

After a quick photo this beautiful hammerhead was released back to the sea.

During the early morning hours, I’ve been hooking up some nice trout, in the fourteen to nineteen inch range, with a few over twenty. This past week, a couple of my clients have landed a few trout just over twenty-six inches long! Along with hooking up some nice specks, my clients have also been hooking up some nice bluefish and skipjacks.

Laura with a nice speck Sam with anonthe nice speck that hit a topwater plug

Now that the kings have arrived, I’ll be running out to see if I can beat last year’s trophy king that went 48” (which on the fish calculator web site was estimated at 42lbs).

It was a stud, and the fish was caught about 200yards off the beach slow trolling a live cigar behind a Tormenter Mini Tuna Dart. What is cool about this rig is that when trolled by itself, it works very well on Bonita and Spanish mackerel. When piggybacked with a live cig, however, the kings cannot pass it up. If you’ve got a boat, get out and go fishing, because summertime is the right time to do some fun fishing. If you don’t have a boat and you want to experience some great light tackle action, give me a ring and I’ll do my best to show you a great day on the water.

Till next time, tight lines.

Capt. John

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top-water trout bite, ending with sharks for toothy photos