Today my crew was my good fishing bud Mason Williams and Masons attorney friends and associates Mike Wilson from Orlando. The plan of the day was to do a little bottom fishing for dinner and catch a few fish for the smoker to smoke up for the annual Christmas get together I have at my house every Christmas Eve.

Mason came by my house at 6:30 AM and we were shortly on our way to Port Canaveral to meet Mike at the Sunrise Marina fuel dock. Mike picked up a box of spanish sardines at the Sunrise bait shop for us and away we went on another beautiful day in east central Florida.

Mason had fished on his boat the "Big Shooter" on Friday and had mixed success at some of his favorite haunts to the north of PC releasing a bunch of short snapper and grouper so we decided to try our luck down to the south of PC in hopes of finding a few larger fish.

First order of business was to stop and use our sabiki rods and pick up some live bait. The hardtails (Blue Runners) were thick and it only took us a half hour or so to load up the live well. Our first stop at Pelican Flats we slow trolled some spinning minnows and live hard tails for kingfish and it didn't take long for us to bag three kingfish for the smoker. The kingfish didn't seem to be nearly as thick at Pelican Flats as they were last week up at 8A but still thick enough to catch a limit if you wanted to. After catching the kings we headed east to drop some of of the hardtails to the bottom and we were glad we did. The current was a light south current under 2 knots. This made our drift unusual in that our course over ground was to the  north and we were actually moving to the north against the wind. The early afternoon bite was pretty slow but as the afternoon progressed the bottom bite turned on and was best between 4:00 and 5:00 PM.

Headed in right before dark and dropped off Masons buddy Mike at PC at about 6:30 PM. We decided to share a little of our catch with Capt. Bob, one of the lockmasters at the Port Canaveral, and hooked him up with one of our kingfish and one of our Scamp groupers. We often hook up our lockmaster buddies with fish whenever we can in times times a plenty for their good service and friendship.

Back at the house and cleaned up by 9:00. My wife Maria came out after she saw the award announcement that Tim Tebow had won the Heisman trophy. What a great day with really good friends and great weather for this time of year.

Guess who's coming to dinner tomorrow night? You  guessed it, mister grouper and his friends.

Final tally for the day:
3 Kingfish between 10 and 15 pounds.
1 Black Grouper 25#
2 Gag Grouper 18# & 35#
4 Scamp Grouper
1 Red Snapper
1 Amberjack
1 Triggerfish