# Even the sharks have to bow to the king (3/1 Ponce Inlet offshore)



## cpn_aaron (Apr 11, 2006)

Seas were 1-2', so there was no way we could not head out offshore. We went out to some wrecks 9 miles from the inlet and caught a fair amount of grunts for baits and then preceeded to hunt out structure in deeper water. We tried the Northeast Rocks, but found the ledges devoid of any bait or fish. We spent a fair amount of time cruising this spot anyway because there were rays and cobia everywhere. The cobia were small (2-2.5') and were too interested in hitting the small sargassum clumps and eating the minnows under them. No matter what we threw at them they refused to even show slight interest. The best interest we got was cobia following and nipping our squid tipped sabiki rigs. We treid sending dow large rigs with squid but they noly wanted to nip at the sabiki tipped rigs. It was weird. Most of the wrecks held cobia of some sort. We would bring up some fish and see a cobia follwing it up to the surface then head back down. However, we couldn't seem to get them to bite. None we saw were near legal though.

After such frustrations we decided to head over to the Party Rocks 30nm offshore and try our luck there. That was the spot. within minutes of setting up we were hooked up to sharpnose sharks everywhere. They were so thick we couldn't get the grunts past them to grouper or snapper. We just kept hookign up sharpnose sharks. 








All the sharks were within 26-32" FL and mostly male. we pulled up 5 males to every one female. Makes me wonder if this is their breeding season, brecasue in another 6 months they'll be pupping up near the beaches. I tagged the first 5, buit then realized I would use up all my tags in very short order. We must have caught close to 20-25. We would pull up rigs to move for a new drift and they'd inhale it at the surface. These guys were feeding so hard.

At this point I decided I would try a trick I learned from some reef fisherman from Hawaii. It is a squid dead drift technique to try and bring the snapper off the reef but keep the trash fish (read sharpnose this time) from noticing it. So I rigged a whole quid on 80# flouro with a 12o/ circle hook and rigged it to drift tail first like a live quid decending for the reef. I just left the cliker on and reel in free spool adn pulled free 10 yds of line every 3 minutes to keep a steady slow drift decent for the rocks. As I turned to nail another sharpnose eating my grunt on my grouper rod, the squid drift rod went off hard. The rod doubled over and kline peeled off. I engaged the fighting drag and the 30# cajun ine continued to peel off, only lsower. I didn't think it was a shark since they did circling runs around the boat. This fish just kept tryign to run away from the boat. After a good 5 minutes the fish seemed spent and I brought it to the boat. Kingfish! 








It was a 32.5" FL king that was perfect size for eating. I gutted and gilled it after a few pictures, bled it out, adn put it on ice. This was my first king and it was an awesome fight. Now I understand why people try to target these guys. Even this little 15#er fought like crazy. When I got it home and steaked the bleeding did wonders. The meat was nicely off-white and nice mackeral smeel, but not overpowering. I pan fired some steaks last night with sesame ginger glaze on either side. It was awesome. I could definitely go for another one. Of course I'd glow in the dark with all that Mercury.  

Right before we were ready to leave we saw the sight we were ready for, fin! A nice sized one as well. The tail to fin spread put this fish close to 7'. 








The fins were short and we figured a mako, but as we got closer at idle speed to toss chunk bait to try and draw him in we saw the hammer-shaped head. It was a nice sized scalloped hammerhead. We couldn't get it to show any interest in our bait and it eventaully went deep. At this time we decided to head back to shore and call it a day. All in all it wasa great day out on the calm seas. Hopefully the sharpnose will back off some in teh next few weeks and allow us an oppertunity to really get some good grouper and snapper action.
tight lines guys.


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## VICIII (Apr 8, 2005)

I would be willing to bet that fish would be excellent with some soy ginger marinade on Barty's grill..


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## cpn_aaron (Apr 11, 2006)

> I would be willing to bet that fish would be excellent with some soy ginger marinade on Barty's grill


I get that same feeling from that king.


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## RuddeDogg (Mar 20, 2004)

Great report.


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