Palm Island Fishing Report

My father and I went down to our island house on Palm Island on Thursday http://www.palmislandrental.com/ We took the boat and will leave it there until May since hurricane season is almost over and had plans to go offshore Friday. I decided to not go shark fishing Friday night and to spend the time rigging instead. After rigging for 3 hours my dad tells me that he forgot the gps so I was pissed and went to bed. Woke up at 5am to look for spanish and kings offshore with only 1 mack and no bait around at all. Went to try out some new flats over by boca grande and had some good luck getting 2 trout, a nice pompano, 1 mackeral, and releasing a lot of short trout. Then went to boca grande pass for snapper and we got our limit of mango's. We released about 40 short grouper, and a 27 1/2" snook. Friday night I went shark fishing and had 2 huge spinner's hit and missed both of em and I was frustrated and figured my hooks got jacked up. Sure enough both hooks had spun around and my #19 wire had a huge bend in it from where the first spinner went airborne 2 times. I lost something on my fin nor when it tail wacked my line (10ft leader on it). Left at 7am then slept all day and caught my first mud ray off the dock in 9 years. Put the ray out for bait sat. night only got one hit on the fin-nor 9500 and landed a 4' 8" blacktip. I tested out my tripod for the first time since I was by myself which is why i'm in the pic. Sunday we bartered time at our island house with Capt. Travis Ormond who goes out of Stump Pass Marina. My mom drove down from lakeland and we took our neighbor on the island with us. First stop at like 23 miles I got my first cobia which was over 5' and went 47lbs! Between 20-28 or so miles out we got like 8 keeper grouper about 14 mangos (I got the biggest that was like 25"). It was a really slow day in all but had fun releasing tons of short grouper and other stuff. I also released like 6 cobia and saw a 7' bull shark that the cobia were followin. Saturday we also had a 4 1/2 ft alligator gar hanging around off the dock so I shot it with my speargun since it was scarin all the fish away. I have no idea why he was there since it is pure salt water and gar are in fresh water. I also have a question about the ray I cought. I've only used ray one other time before cus it's hard to find them down at Palm Island and I thought they were supposed to be bloody. The mud ray I got was like 10 lb and the meat was white with no blood at all. I think the only blood I saw in the thing was around the central gut cavity. I put it on ice really good as soon as I caught it and I can't figure out where all the bloody meat was. I'll post pics later when my dad brings the camera home. My dad ended up catching on Monday a nice red off the dock as well as a few more trout.

Friday's Fish

My dad and the Capt.

Just a few of the keepers (I don't smile much as you can tell)