May 5 & 6th, Marathon Key, FL

[craw_daddy]

Headed down for some spring reef fishing with a couple of motivated fisherman. Decided not to mix it up w/ the dolphin tournament warriors, but see what the spring-time reef bite was like. We fished two days on the reef with beautiful weather & cooperative fish! Each day we found good current & had the yellowtail snapper up behind the boat. In addition to the yellowtails (YT), we also caught some nice mangrove snapper & a couple of pretty mutton snapper on small live pinfish.





Went through a case of chum each day w/ a block or so going to mix w/ the separate oatmeal 'slop'. Our big YT was this 23" 'flag'.



We were also surprised by a pair of ~#35 AJ's while YT fishing on a shallow reef. One sucked in a silverside intended for YT. After a 20 min battle on #12 line -it made it to the cooler. Here is a pic of the results of our two days of fishing effort:



The boys even managed to spear a couple of hogfish while snorkeling to round out their keys experience!

Another great weekend in the FL keys!

[jcollins]

Thanks for posting these pictures. You give me hope.

[Halcyon]

Do you guys eat amber jacks? I grew up being told that like the barracuda, they can make you sick for ciguterra. Particularly reef caught because they are feeding on juvenile parrot fish and other coral eaters.

Thant being said I have seen AJ's on the menus in some resturants. How do they taste?

TD

[craw_daddy]

yes, they are regularly taken & smoked. It is offered at many retaurants. I wouldn't eat a huge one & this one was wasn't considered too big.. I plan on smoking it tonight!