Took some old friends out this past week and they had Spanish and Flounder on the mind. Anglers have had trouble locating spanish these past few weeks, but we had no problem in locating huge schools of spanish (acres across) from atlantic beach to the Cape. We don’t waste our time trolling with “Tuna” gear, and prefer the light-tackle approach. As long as the weather allows, we could have limited out on 14-20in fish daily. The secret is locating the schools of fish either by timing their proximity to the beach with time of day and tides or by simply looking for working birds or dolphins (feeding on the spanish). The action has been fast and furious with all of our fish caught on spec rigs and stingsilvers. With the action as crazy as it was, we even able to catch some on the fly – with most of the strikes coming right next to the boat. To top off of the action were the large schools of blacktips and spinner sharks following the spanish – we released six 4-6ft blacktips using bluefish heads. We also hooked a few on spec-rigs and flies – on an 8 weight, the fight didn’t last too long. Also in the mix are juvenile kings and “peanut” sized false albacore.
Exhausted of Spanish, we made several runs out to the nearshore wrecks (AR315, 320 and the barge) to cash in on the hot flounder bite. With a livewell full of shrimp and menhaden, we averaged 6-10 fish an hour with about half of them keepers. The fish are big, with many in the 18-22inch range. They kept a couple for dinner and released the majority. We also lost several at the boat but did manage this nice 5lb 8oz citation.
As long as the weather allows us to fish– it doesn’t get much hotter than this!
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