July 10 -- The Resnicks

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Justin, Fran and 11-year old Jake fished out of the St. Lucie Inlet with me, looking for "anything that would bite". Besides a couple of fish, they also re-emphasized the lesson "don't stop until you're COMPLETELY out of bait."

Jake began the fun with a nice little 3-pound jack he caught right on the edge of the beach, in about a foot of water. The jack might not have pulled the scale all the way to the edge, but it managed to run Jake around th boat a couple of time and try to break off in the prop before he finally got it to the boat. That's part of the joy of light tackle fishing!

We ran out to get some more bait and then came back to the inlet, hoping for some big snook. It looked like, once again, we were going to run out of bait, but I found one last threadfin hiding behind the standpipe in the well and stuck on Justin's hook. Not 30 seconds after the last bait of the day hit the water, Justin was pulling hard to keep a 12-pound jack out of the woods and submerged logs where we were fishing. The fish made three or four really hard ( I know, because I had the drag pretty tight 0n the Shimano reel) runs. When Justin got him to the boat and I got him in the boat, the hook immediately fell out onto the deck.

June 12 -- Steve, Lance and Casey, Round 2

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The Georgians came back for Round 2 of St. Lucie Inlet snook. This time: More baits and more time equaled more snook.

After a run to the 14 Buoy for more baits, we hit the inlet to catch the last of the outgoing tide. Ten casts brought in 8 fish and the Georgia boys were on fire. The best part was the water was shallow enough that you could see the bite happen and watch the sardine get inhaled by the snook.

Casey even got in on the action and reeled in a few standing on the deck and holding his own rod.

With the tide change, we headed out the inlet and set up near the rocks. Lance's favorite rock (the one with the flat, dry top), if you want to be exact.

It didn't take long for the big fish to figure out we had the baits they wanted and the action was non-stop for a little while as Steve and Lance fought (sometimes unsuccessfully) to keep the fish out of the rocks. Casey assumed his spot on the leaning post and reeled in the bigger fish with the rod in the holder.

All told, the final count was 20 snook. All very near, in or above the slot limit.

June 9 -- Snook fishing with Steve, Lance and Casey

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Steve, Lance and Casey were down from Georgia, breaking in summer with a couple days of rest on Hutchinson Island. Part of that time, they decided, was going to be spent fishing for snook with Corporate Retreat Charters and Capt. Mike Readling.

After a run out to the 14 Buoy for some baits, they headed back and poked around a couple spots before landing on the detached jetties in the St. Lucie Inlet. Steve was the first one hooked up, wrestling his first-ever snook away from the rocks and to the boat. The 36-incher was thick shouldered and stuck around long enough for a few pictures and nice release (not to mention the evil eye stare as it swam away).

Lance jumped in on the action and pulled another snook off the jetty and to the boat. Next, it was 7-year old Casey's turn to mark snook off of his lifetime checklist. Lance hooked it, Steve put Casey on the leaning post, facing backwards with the rod in one of the rod holders. Despite a couple runs for the rocks, the linesider made it to the boat and Casey stuck his thumb in the mouth of his first snook.

But he wasn't done. The last bait of the day got gobbled up by another 36-incher and Casey assumed his position on the leaning post, reeling in another monster. This one was big enough that he had to put his entire arm underneath it to support it for the picture.

Great day guys! Thanks.

May 9-10: Big jacks, a few sharks and a nice snook

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Scott and Dylan (he's the little one) came down from Meridian, Mississippi for a couple days of fishing in Stuart and Jensen Beach. The main target was sharks since this was Dylan's birthday present, so we headed up the beach in search of some spinners, black tips, bulls and whatever else we could find.
On the way up, I saw a big school of jacks swimming by, about 100 yards off the boat. So, we turned around, got in front of them and tossed out a Sebile Splasher. For those of you who haven't seen one of these Splashers before, you have to see the water this thing moves when you pop it. Amazing.

The lure landed in front of the school, he popped it twice and then fought to stay in the boat the next 20 minutes as that jack too off.

The 24-pounder securely in the boat and ready to be used for bait, we continued out trek up the beach, passing three or four more schools of the big jacks.
At the shark spot -- Shark Territory, as Dylan kept exclaiming -- I cut a slab off the jack and tossed it out while the carcass hung in the water right behind the boat. Within about 30 minutes there was a BIG shark about 40 yards off the boat doing ever-tightening circles. It looked like a lemon shark, and ran about 7 feet long. He lined up behind the boat, in the chum line and right over one of the baits, but another boat came blowing up from behind it and we never saw the shark again.
We redeployed the baits and finally got a hook-up (between boat traffic) with a jumping, twirling spinner shark. I set Dylan on the leaning post, kneeling and facing back so he could reel on the fish with the rod in a rod holder. He reeled a couple times but the shark broke off. We put more bait out and hooked another shark, this one much smaller, who was content to just splash on the surface and make quick runs. He eventually broke off too.

The next day the water temp dropped 15 degrees to 61 (thank you cold water upwelling) so we ran all the way back down the beach to the flats and fished for snook. We got a couple real good hits on the big greenies we had and managed to get this one to the boat. Dylan reeled it all by himself, while I held the rod through the jumps and runs.
The cold water should have moved on to the flats by now and shut down the bite for a week or two, but it was nice to get in some good fishing before that happened!

May 1 -- Offshore permit out of Stuart

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The day started with my boss (Mike), the Yamaha Southeastern Saltwater Promotions Director (Mike D.) and myslef (Mike R.) fishing the Sailfish Point flats. After about an hour of seatrout (up to 6 pounds or so), jacks and bluefish (lots of bluefish), we decided to head offshore to see if we could run into a school of permit that was in about 40 feet.

Grabbed some crabs and headed east! When we got to the spot, we found more barracuda than anything else -- until Mike spotted a mass of dark backs coming our way. Mike D. was the first to throw his crab and it was immediately sucked in. Mike and I sat back and watched him fight the fish on tackle that was far too light for what we were doing. And we had quite the fun time doing it!

After about 20 minutes we pulled the 35-pounder into the boat and went back to what we were doing. In the meantime, a 29-foot Everglades pulled up and anchored on the rock pile we were fishing. They had no idea what they were doing and, between dropping their shrimp to the bottom and reeling up empty hooks, we were pulling 30-plus pound permit from right under their hull. If they had looked up they would have seen about 300 permit mooning and shining all around their boat.

I got my chance when I cast my crab about 10 feet from the Everglades and hooked up, working hard to keep the hard-running fish out of the other guy's anchor line. Mike D. fed a decent-sized mutton snapper a crab and then threw it back before we had a chance to filet it for dinner.

Then Mike and Mike D. socked into a doubleheader, leaving me to snap pictures and wait for a fish to come close enough to grab it. We ended up with 5 fish on 8 crabs and 4 permit, all 0ver 25 pounds.

All in all, one heck of a great day offshore. And it's only going to get better!!

April 9 -- Charter fishing in the St. Lucie Inlet

Please check out my website for more photos and fishing reports, http://www.corporateretreatcharters.com/.

The Owen family was in town from Georgia celebrating Spring Break and enjoying a little charter fishing trip in the St. Lucie Inlet.

Michael, Sydney and mom, Allison, spent a half day fishing the docks and shorelines of the inlet, listening to drags scream and watching fish pop baits off the surface. The day started with Sydney reeling in the first snook, watching the release and then catching another to release on her own, using the famous Let-It-Suck-Your-Thumb method.

Ater the tide changed, we head out on the beach, hoping to run into a school of the big jacks that have been marauding baits the past few weeks. We found the school, but the fish were more interested in tormenting fishing guides by appearing and then disappearing as soon as the bait hit the water. We learned that lesson pretty quick and headed back inside for more outgoing tide snook.

We found the pocket where the fish were holding and kept bombarding them pilchards. Sydney hooked and reeled in several of her own, while Michael kept his reel screaming. Even Allison got in on the action with a couple jacks.

All told, the day produced 12 to 15 snook, a couple grouper and several hard-pulling jack crevalle. Thanks to the Owen Family for stopping by for a great Thursday!!

April 5 -- Diggin' the dolphin offshore

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Shawn Steele, down from St. Petersburg, and I found a nice, smooth day and headed offshore in search of dolphin. It's April and that means the big mahi should be moving along the East Coast. Anywhere from about 120 feet to 330 should hold the fish and some of the biggest ones of the year are caught this month.

I'd heard the Gulf Stream was only 10 miles out of the St. Lucie Inlet and that was where we were headed. Live bait in the wells and some strong braid on the reels and we were ready to go.

Shawn caught a small "sandwich" dolphin pretty soon after we started drifting in about 175 feet but he was a solo and barely big enough to bother cleaning so back in he went. Nothing happened for a while, unless you count a really cool funnel cloud spinning off the bottom of some storm clounds about 12 miles out!

We were moving a little deeper when I spotted a couple schools of flying fish scattering across the surface. It looked like they were jumping from the white caps, until I realized those white caps were a fish blowing up on the bait. We ran right to the explosions and, when we were about 100 feet away, you could see a decent-sized dolphin all lit up blue and green gobbling baits. We pitched a pilchard and a BIG live mullet and he came right to them, crunching the mullet hard. The bull spit the mullet, then jumped right back on it and then ate the pilchard as well, meaning we were both hooked into him at the same time. He jumped once and spit the pilchard, but kept the mullet and the hook.

A few more jumps and he was gaffed and iced. He weighed out between 35 and 40 pounds.