I went out this morning to try one of Jack's spots in the bay in between the Meisner and the Skyway. Put in at Maximo because I figured the flats off O'Neils would be holding bait. Wrong... or at least not in my usual spots, chummed for about a half an hour and only came up with only pins.

Saw a few schools on the way to the Skyway but by the time I got the boat in what looked like a good drift, and then loaded the net... they moved or the drift wasn't good. Sabiki''d the pilings at the Skyway and got a decent number of palm sized green backs and white baits and headed to Jack's spot.

Dropped a chum block and freelined the live baits and fan casted a gotcha but wasn't getting anything. As the chum started to break up the fishing got better but my baits were too big and kept getting cut in half so I went to a stinger rig on the live baits.

I'd watch fish chasing that gotcha right up to the boat but no takers so I switched to a clark spoon. That was the ticket, but not for what I was looking for. Caught a half a dozen blue fish on the clark spoon before I switched to live bait on both rods.

I just couldn't believe how many baits got tore up even with the stinger rig but ended up adding a couple more blufish to the total and tossing a couple of really big mackerel on ice before calling it a day around noonish. I even tried one of Captain Rick's tricks in hooking them through the belly but they were just too big. Even had one get struck twice, reeled it back and it was just the center of the bait no head or tail

The big surprise of the day... two short grouper, in the bay on freelined white baits.. go figure.

It was a beautiful day though and there was no shortage of action. Although I only brought home two, those blues were fun and I've never caught a grouper on a flat line before.