Along with a number of other boats, we fished the beaches north of St Augustine. This area had been hot for the past month and we had not fished it since the heavy seas from Hurricane Dennis came through. Apparently, most of the fish moved to other locations.
We saw a few fish caught in our area, one of them obviously big with a 45-minute chase and fight, but for the most part these beaches were quiet.
So our venture into the Tournament of Champions portion of the VIP day was a bust – but not a total bust. This stretch of water has been eliminated for the big tourney this Thursday and Friday.
The winning VIP fish, caught by Kenny Crawford on his boat Crawfish, was a bit over forty pounds and according to my sources was caught south of Jacksonville. How far south remains the mystery at this point! There were several thirty-pound fish and a number of fish in the twenty-pound range that placed in the money. See all the results at www.kingfishtournament.com.
The fish are on the beach. The water temperature was 82 degrees, and bait is everywhere. This is the first year in a number of years that the beach water has warmed this much for this long.
Our one run to a near shore wreck in sixty feet of water produced only several bait eating barracuda, so the big tourney will find our boat either way out on a deep wreck or we will “live and die” on the beach.
The Junior Angler tourney is Wednesday, so more updates as we progress through the week.
