Tuesday, 06/16/09 I walked out on the Ft Myers Beach pier with my sabiki stick and tarpon pole. Basically, I just wanted to see if there was much in the way of bait there. There was. Huge schools of greenbacks were popping all over the place!
When I unlimbered my sabiki stick, I discovered that most of the hooks had rusted and the little fish scale looking thingies on the hooks were falling off. I tried it anyways and only managed to snag a few greenies. I put one out live and freelined on my tarpon pole but between the wind and tide, I couldn't get the bait down off the surface. People all around me were catching nice spanish macs, but all I managed was three greenbacks.
So today, 06/17/09, I picked up a few sinkers, some smaller circle hooks, and a new #4 white sabiki rig. I rigged my trout rod with the sabiki rig and rigged my redfish rod with a 1 oz slip sinker over a swivel and three feet of 20# flourocarbon leader with a 1/0 Owner Circle hook (the classic "fishfinder" rig). I headed back to the pier - arriving about 75 minutes before low tide. I planned to fish the last of the falling and first of the rising tide.
Right away I started catching big greenbacks. I put one out on the redfish rod and while soaking that, commenced to collect more bait for the ice chest. I plan to use the saved bait as cut bait and chum for tarpon and or sharks off Sanibel/Captiva later this week. I also hoped to score a few of those nice spanish macs I saw people catching all around me the day before to add to my shark bait stash.
I was catching greenbacks primarily, but managed quite a few pilchards too. Whenever I put a pilchard out live on my redfish rod, it got hit. The greenbacks were not touched. But more about that later.
In addition to the greenies and pilchards, I caught a few leatherbacks. Those darned things are nasty! Nothing will take them as bait and they can sting the daylights out of you with their dorsal fins! I caught a bunch of little, flat, round looking fish too. Don't know what they're called, but I've never had any luck using them as bait so I tossed them back along with the leatherbacks. I also had some sizeable spanish mackerel hit the sabiki rig and as a result, my six hook sabiki rig eventually became a 3 hook sabiki rig! I didn't land any of the spanish macs that hit the sabiki. All of them bit off the hook they hit.
I was getting hits on the pilchards though! I hooked a nice trout that spit the hook as I lifted him out of the water for the long haul up to the pier. I also had three hooks bitten off - probably spanish macs but possibly bluefish. I did eventually land two nice keeper trout of 15 1/2 and 16 1/2 inches. They both went into the cooler.
A family nearby was tearing up the spanish mackerel on live pilchards and they offered me two of them which I gladly accepted to add to my shark bait coffers!
The bait became scarce about 1 1/2 hours into the rising tide and it was time to head home anyways.
I left the two mackerel on ice for sharking later this week and headed out to the dock out back to fillet the trout.
It was odd that I was the only person on the pier catching trout while all the other live bait fishermen were nailing spanish macs. Go figure!
I fired up my "Big Green Egg" charcoal cooker and headed inside to prepare a sauce to use to cook my four spotted trout filets outside on the grill. I've been working up a new recipe and this fish tonight was literally the best fish I have ever eaten! Here's my recipe...
Ingredients:
1/2 stick of butter
2 heaping tablespoons of mayonaise
1 shot glass of lime juice (lemon works too)
2 shot glasses of mojito sauce ( Goya "Mojo Criollo" will work but I use some homemade Cuban mojito that really adds a nice, light, citrusy, garlicky, peppery flavor)
1 slice of onion - diced
salt and pepper
two to four spotted seatrout filets
Method:
Melt the butter in a ceramic casserole dish. Add the onion, lime juice, and mojito. Salt and pepper to taste. Stir the ingredients together until a smooth, creamy consistancy is reached.
You can cook in the stove's broiler or on a grill. I prefer the grill. I add soaked hickory chips to the coals before cooking for a touch of light smoked flavor. I set my grills flue and vents to provide a medium heat and once the sauce is bubbling I add the filets. After about 3 - 4 minutes, when the edges of the filets are turning white, I flip them and continue to cook another 3 - 4 minutes. Do NOT overcook!
Serve with cold beer. No need to add any other seasoning. The infusion from the sauce will lightly and perfectly season the fish. This is absolutely the best fish I have ever tasted!
Life is good! :)
