Page 9 - Palm City Spotlight - October '20
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Palm City Spotlight, Page 9
Treasure Coast Outdoors
Mullet Run, Mutton Snapper, attracts just about every type
Snook, And Tilefish Dominate of predator fish imaginable. It
is a great time to be an angler.
The Fishing Scene As I watched large fish
feeding and splashing in the
By Jim Weix dark cloud of mullet offshore,
A simple exercise walk the father suddenly jabbed his
on the beach turned into a landing net into the water and
fun experience. As I neared hoisted up his son’s snook.
the beach, I saw dark clouds It was too large to keep, as
of mullet just offshore. On the slot size is between 28
the beach, a 13-year-old was inches and 32 inches, but it was
doing battle with a snook. His definitely a thrill for his son.
excited father was standing in Offshore, the mutton snapper
the surf with a landing net. bite has been good. My favorite
This is the time of year way to fish the reefs for them
that millions of finger mullet is to drift with an egg sinker
begin swimming the shorelines and gather for their winter above the swivel, a 20-foot
migration to Miami and the Keyes. This gathering also leader, and live bait.
Unfortunately, before the mullet run, live bait had been hit or
miss. My backup plan for those days has been my electric reel
and squid. Deep dropping for tilefish has saved many fishing
trips.
Tilefish live in mud or soft sand burrows and sometimes
congregate in pods at depths ranging from 200 to 1,400 feet.
Depending upon the depth and current, you will need a weight
from 6 to 18 pounds.
Tom Flynn, of Palm City, introduced me to this fish. On a
recent trip with him, I caught a 22-pounder. We were drifting
and using a 12-pound weight and a 5 hook deep drop rig, with
a light.
This past Labor Day, I introduced Doug Goethel of Stuart
to the sport. Doug caught his first tilefish, but we also learned
that there are some other really big fish down there. On our first
drop, I used an 18-pound weight since the current was strong.
As soon as we hit the bottom, the rod twitched. As I retrieved
line, I was pretty sure we had a nice fish on.
No sooner was I planning a tilefish dinner for that night, when
the rod suddenly bent in half, then went straight. Something big,
with sharp teeth, had instantly bit through my 100-pound leader,
leaving me with only the top two hooks. After re-rigging, we
did two more drops, and Doug got his first tilefish. Since the
limit is one fish per person, we decided that we had time for
one more drift.
After losing my 18-pound weight, we were limited to the
8-pound weight that I had left. This meant that we had to let
out almost 2,000 feet of line to stay on the bottom. As I was
bringing the line back in, I noticed a couple of twitches at the rod
tip. Since we had so much line out, I tightened up the drag and
thought this is great, we will limit out. Then, in an instant, the
rod bent in half and the 65-pound braided line simply snapped
at the rod trip.
I learned two things that day: don’t over tighten the drag and
there is a reason that tilefish hide in burrows.
Editor’s note: Jim Weix is an avid hunter, angler,
conservationist, as well as an outdoor writer. Jim is included
in the Wisconsin Waterfowl Association’s Hall of Fame for his
work in helping restore thousands of acres of wetlands. Jim is a
broker associate with The Keyes Company. He can be reached
at (772) 341-2941 or by email: jimweix@jimweix.com.
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