Today my fishing buddies were again Matt, Dave and Kent, repeat Goin Off fishin buddies from last year to and who fished with me on 5/18/2011 a great group of guys to share my birthday with.
    First order of business was to net a bunch of pogies for the live well which was easily done down south right off the beach near the Hilton hotel. Today we had Mahi on our mind, but after hearing that fishing was really slow yesterday I decided to try our luck with the Amberjack (AJ)on the way out to look for Mahi. First stop was the lead wreck, and after giving a bucket full of pogies to Capt. Frank Pawela on the Emerald Seas, one of my local competitors, but good friend, Kent dropped a live pogie on the wreck which was quickly inhaled by a 56 pound AJ.
    Next stop the another ship wreck, the Cities Service Tanker, where Matt caught a 25 pound AJ on a butterfly jig and I got a 55 pounder hooked up on a butterfly jig for Dave as well. After catching the AJ's we moved on to our chasing the Mahi.
    Mahi fishing was a little slow as I had expected but we changed tactics to trolling ballyhoo and managed to finish our day with four Mahi-Mahi between 8 and 22 pounds. Unfortunately today we alson had another "big one that got away" story as well. We had just finished catching our last Mahi, Dave's jumping Mahi, and as usual while I was preparing the boat for the run home I cast a live pogie out in case there was something hungry around. As it turned out a dolphin I estimated at over 35 pounds inhaled the pogie and the battle was on. Kent did a fine job playing the fish for about 45 minutes. Unfortunately we lost it on what would have surely been its final run when it chewed through to 80 pound fluorocarbon leader and got away. I hate it when that happens, but, that's fishing.

Final tally for the day:
4 Mahi-Mahi to 22 pounds
3 Amberjack to 56 pounds