Woke up this morning with every intention to mow the yard, re-fit the "Goin Off" after repairs, clean the patio, and whatever else needed doing around the house ---- NOT !!! ----. With the weather flat calm and a desire to fish my own boat again I hastily loaded up my spinning rods, ice, cast net, and gaffs and off by myself I went. I cleared the locks by 7:45 AM and shot down the beach to the steeple and worked my butt off for about 20 minutes getting the pogies I figured I'd need for the days fishing.

Off to Pelican Flats I went and within 25 minutes of my arrival I had my first cobia at boat side and since it looked a little to close to the 33 inch legal length and was lip hooked I decided to let it grow up rather than risk hurting him. Next came a double hook up of cobia and being all by myself was definitely was a Chinese fire drill trying to clear the other two lines, reel up the two downriggers, and fight two fish circling the boat in different directions. I fought both fish off and on for about forty five minutes until I could pick the larger of the two to concentrate on and finally settled on one of the fish to get him on the ice. In the mean time the other fish broke off when the line got wrapped around the tip of the rod. The next cobia came as a single that swam up to the boat alone, thank god, and I released this short after about a 15 minute fight. The second and last cobia going into the box was caught about an hour later after a 30 minute fight and another Chinese fire drill clearing lines and downriggers.

Filled the time between cobia with a few kings, bonito, sharks, dolphin, and Spotted Wahoo. With the sea flat glassy calm, hotter than Hades, by myself, and biting off more than I could chew all morning if you look at the picture my friend Loren took of me back at the dock at 3:30 PM it's a wonder to me why I didn't have a heat stroke or something. I look like BUBBA the red-necked fisherman in the picture and felt like I was going to drop a nut holding up the two forty pounders. BTW, it sure was fun!!!!!!

Final tally for the day:
1 Dolphin - peanut released to grow up
9 Kingfish - 2 small ones kept for the smoker
4 Cobia - two 40 pounders kept and two released to grow up
3 Spotted Wahoo (Barracuda) - released
2 Sharks - released
2 Bonito - released