THE FISHING TRIP: Bait scouting
The Spot : Anglins Pier at the end of Commercial Blv in Lauderdale By The Seas, FL
Weather : South southeast winds 6 to 11 knots. Seas less than 2 feet
Water: Clear then started to brown from canal water being released, but not so bad
Fish catches: Blue runners and butter fish
Techniques : Crappie igs and small silver spoons

This weekend was an idle weekend for me, it was about resting up a bit and scouting for bait. I decided to go to Anglins pier since it offers comfort for my wife and daughter whom kept me some company on this trip. Got there 3 hour before sunrise and waited for the sun to come up. When I arrived there were small pods of finger mullets getting smashed by some snook and people had been catching bluefish. The kind of bait I was after doesn’t come to the pier when there are too many blue fish since these are voracious predators and will continuously harass the bait day or night. Even though bluefish is a bait I can use by the time I got there all the action died down so my only choice was to wait for sunrise and hope for some blue runners  and Spanish mackerel to arrive or hope for the bluefish to return. The sunrise came up and only the blue runners and white baits were present. Since I’m going on a 3.5 day fishing trip on Captain Yuri’s boat headed to the Dry Tortugas in 3 weeks, I am in need of oily baits so I was only after blue runners, small jacks crevalles, spanish mackerel, blue fish, and the such. At night it was just a few pickings of blue runners and lots of the ever annoying lookdown fish. the water started to get a nice color and the blue runner started coming in but died down almost as soon as they got there. The water started to get a brownish hue to it and lots of cow fish started to show up so I decided to try again another day. I did not want to take more blue runners than I was actually going to use. I like to keep a balanced amount of bait. A couple dozen blue runners, dork jacks, only about 2 or 3 blue fish, a good half dozen Spanish mackerels, at least a dozen of google eyes, and a dozen of speedos all caught within three weeks before a trip. The the fresh bait that will include bait caught three days before the trip; pinfish, about 6″  to as big as I can get blue runners, spanish mackerels, goggle eyes, blue fish, barracudas, ballyhoos, and on the day of scaled sardines and thread-fin herrings since these loose their quality too soon. These are only some of the baits I use, for other baits that have come in handy you should read my fishing reports as I always leave an Easter egg tip laying around in between all the writing I do. My way of helping people fish but not giving all away in a simple list. Here are some pics from today:

Jigs I normally use to catch most of my baits

Below are some baits vacuumed packed and ready for my old bait freezer at -10 degrees

Went Back on 10-12-13

Well my nephew’s best friend wanted to go fishing so I told him Anglins pier was good to catch some blue runners for fun and I wanted to get a few other baits as well. So we met up at my nephew’s house and arrived at Anglings at 4 am. Went to the lights and started catching some runners other baits were not present but was told that the macks were running the day before so I was hoping for a better day this time around. As we were close to shore trying for baits we were catching too many baby pompanos so we decided to move over tot the “T” (the end of the pier). When we got to the T there were plenty blue runners but all were on the small side. I was hoping for bigger size one so I could chunk and or use their innards for mutton bait in the Dry Tortugas while fishing on Captain Yuri’s boat. I have always had great luck while using blue runners that were no more than a few weeks old. My nephew his son and friends had a ball catching the runners. I also met up with Nilson a friend that will be fishing with us on Captain Yuri’s Boat. This day we ended with more than enough runners for all six fishing in that trip. Here are some pics from that day.

Small Pompano

A nice sunrise as always

My nephew’s son with his priced blue runners on crappy jigs

Florida Wildlife Commision officers (FWC) telling a diver to stay 300 feet from the pier. It is extremely dangerous for them to be there not only will they get tangle with the fishing lines but also may get hit by a fishing rig since the fishermen don’t really know where the divers might be, sometimes their flag rope is too long and the bubbles get carried by the currents.

Here are the runners before the saltwater was added for a slush to brine them.