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Posted by Paul Bithorn on 22:18:17 06/14/04
On Sunday, June 13th, my 13-year old son Joshua and a couple of friends had a great day of fishing and birding during the the Miami Springs Optimist Club's 3rd Annual Dolphin Tournament. It was a partly cloudy day with light to variable winds out of the southeast.
Heading out of the Crandon Park Marina on Key Biscayne at 5:30 a.m., we saw our first Bridled Terns southeast of Fowey Light. We trolled on a southeasterly heading 26 nautical miles from Stiltsville to approximately 12 miles offshore out in the Gulfstream.
We picked up a beautiful Yellowfin Tuna (I am gorging myself on sahimi as I write this) trolling through a flock of 15 feeding Bridled Terns, 1 Greater Shearwater, 3 Cory's Shearwaters and 8 Audubon's Shearwaters. The shearwaters rafted above a feeding school of tuna picking up bits of baitfish floating to the surface from the feeding frenzy.Some of the Audubon's Sheawaters showed white wedges projecting into the dark uppertail,but the dark undertail coverts eliminated the rare Manx Shearwater.
Later, we found a slick where there was strong current with a decent weedlne running parallel to the slick. After picking up a 6 and a 7 pound schoolie Dolphin we found a pallet floating in the weedline. While trying to catch a large Tripletail on a spinner under the pallet a nice-sized Dolphin came to the surface and was hooked and weighed in at 18 pounds. My son scooped up 8 Triggerfish with a net feeding on our Menhaden chum. A 17 pound Wahoo was caught soon thereafter. At least 10 Wilson's Storm-Petrels and 2 Band-rumped Storm Petrels (shearwater-like flight) were seen during our adventure. Larry Manfredi's June 26th pelagic trip out to the Marathon Hump holds great promise.
We would take 5th place out of 55 boats and quaffed many a celebratory libation at the awards fish fry.
Life is good......................
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