My buddy Captain Peter Heydon and I took advantage of the beautiful weather we had today and ventured out to the reef for some yellowtailing. The bite on the reef was on all morning and we filled the cooler in only a few hours. I first dropped a bait down to the bottom while the chum was working. Bait hit the bottom and was instantly eaten by the big red grouper pictured below. A few other drops to the bottom resulted in smaller hinds which were released. Pete freelined his first bait back for yellowtail and hooked something big that went straight to the bottom and got hung up. A few minutes of patience and it came free. Pete landed the big mutton snapper pictured below. Wow what a start!!
We settled in for yellowtailin' and we each caught a triggerfish, which will make some nice ceviche for tomorrow. We finally got a yellowtail after all that and it was a quality fish. We topped of the cooler with a bunch of yellowtails, we kept nothing under 16 inches. We also caught a few mackerel and a couple of small bonitas.
Captain Mike Bartlett
http://www.keywestflats.net/
http://www.facebook.com/CaptMikeBartlett
