Belle Glade YEC Fishing Trip and Captain's Report

The students at the Belle Glade Youth Empowerment Center joined us for a day of fishing at the Boynton Boat Ramp last Friday.  The students were all extremely excited to show everything they have learned the last few weeks in class.  It was a beautiful day, but a little windy.  The fishing started off a little slow, but after about 20 minutes the fish decided to start biting, and did not stop!  Many of the students caught pinfish, snappers, grunts, and even a needle fish.  The students also had a blast watching the Ospreys dive bombing the massive schools of mullet running south on their annual migration.  Some of the other anglers at the park gave the students a couple of mullet each to take home, and this week in class they spoke about how delicious they were that night.  Now that we have fished in saltwater, I can not wait for the students to show me how they do in freshwater around Lake O.

Last Saturday we had a great charter with a group of middle school students from Miami and their parents.  As we unties from the dock, the kids all told me they wanted to catch a shark, dolphinfish and kingfish.  We started out trolling our usual areas with no luck, so we decided to head offshore due to the west wind.  A few miles offshore it started getting a little rough, but it paid off when we caught 2 nice dolphinfish.

After bringing in the dolphin we decided to head for the reef and calmer waters.  At first we caught bluerunners and things were not looking very exciting, until the first kingfish was brought to the boat.  Sadly it was an inch short so we released it.  Soon after releasing the kingfish we caught 2 sharks, another kingfish (legal), and all sorts of reef dwelling fish.  We hope the kids all had a great time, and would like to thank the whole group for the most amazing charter.

Santaluces High School Fishing and Kayak Trip - 10/15/11

As a reward for completing the first section of our new "Angling for a Healthy Future" program, for high school students, Capt. Rich decided to take some of the Santaluces students out fishing on our boat, and snorkeling with the kayaks.

The morning started with a fishing trip offshore on our boat.  The seas were a little rough, and some of the students were not feeling the best, so we decided to troll around; and it paid off!  The students took turns reeling in bonitos, blackfin tunas, and skipjack tunas.  We unfortunately also had a big bite off.  Due to the seas we came in early to fish inside the intracoastal were we caught a few lane snappers, and saw a few big tarpon.

Once all the fish was cleaned and put on ice, we then headed over to the Boynton Beach Boat Ramp.  Despite the strong winds the students grabbed the kayaks and a jon boat.  Our goal was to paddle over to Bird Island and do some snorkeling.  It took us all a little longer than we thought to reach the island paddling against the wind, but we all survived.  At the island we snorkeled around the rock, while some of the other students tried to fish again.

It was an exciting day for the students, as well as for Capt Rich and I.  The students were able to put their new fishing knowledge to use, and we were able to see how much they have learned.

The Santaluces High School students will be starting the second section of our program this week, while Belle Glade YEC will be finishing this week.  We are planning a fishing trip for our Belle Glade students this week, and will post pictures as soon as we can.