This past week we held our first offshore fishing summer camp out of the Riviera Beach Marina. The start of the week was terrible weather wise. Monday through Wednesday we battled high winds and even higher seas. All the campers were troupers, and each of those day we ventured out into the ocean for a short period, but had to come back in and fish the intracoastal the remainder of the day. The camps caught snappers, grunts, triggerfish and stingrays around Peanut Island; and we lost a nice shark on Monday afternoon on the east side of Peanut Island.
Yesterday and today the weather finally decided to cooperate, and we spent both days trolling and drift fishing off Palm Beach. Yesterday we trolled north and south of the inlet and caught 4 blackfin tuna, 2 kingfish, and more bonitos than we could count. This morning we headed offshore in search of dolphin and wound up landing 2 large baracudas. Around 11am we headed into 120ft and drifted for some reef fish. The camper caught trigger, grunts, and many other reef dwelling species. As we were packing up to head in we hooked into 2 large bonitos while drifting squid.
All the campers seemed to have a blast fishing offshore, but I feel like the best part of the week for them was hand-lining giant Jack Crevalles at the dock. Each day after cleaning the boat and the fish, the camps used the scraps and left over bait to hand line some very strong jacks. I am amazed that none of them were pulled in!!!!!
