Nofing: The Master of the Sabiki

    Today was a unique day, despite not having much success on the water. Noah, a college friend who is from the gulf coast is spending the summer in South Florida and had been trying on his own for some Snook. We decided to get together, along with our friend Adam, to do our best to try to catch them. We planned for 6:30 at the Bal Harbor Jetty at the south side of the Haulover inlet, hoping that the evening outgoing tide would be conducive to our success. I picked up some live shrimp on the way over, and I set my gear up with Noah at the parking spot next to the bridge before walking over to the jetty, with Adam arriving a few minutes later. Chopp had a great idea with bringing a folding chair - something I should think of for next time. As soon as we got there, Noah casted out his sabiki rig just past the rocks, each hook tipped with a small piece of shrimp flavored fishbites, and just left a little bit of slack for like 5-10 seconds before reeling in the line, each time with a fish or two on one of the hooks. Tipping the hooks with Fishbites, a sturdy bait, is a good idea; normally I tip the pieces with shrimp, which is easier for fish to take off the hook. Noah, used to fishing the gulf, which doesn't have as much of a presence of coral reefs, was surprised at the fact that he was bringing up more colorful fish than just pilchards. The sabiki was bringing in Bluestriped Grunts, Tomtates, and even a Porkfish. This was combined with a bluestriped grunt I also brought up on a simple three way rig I had set up with a live shrimp. Noah and I both hooked these small, bait sized grunts, near the anal fin of the fish on 3/0 circle hooks rigged with a relatively light bank sinker on a three way rig which we casted out in hopes of getting a big fish. Unfortunately, nothing substantial took our baits. We were also victims of the copious amounts of sargassum washing in, both from the rotting smell from the dried sargassum on the beach behind us, and the way it would get caught on any line we casted out that stayed on the bottom. While we fished past sunset and a bit into the night, we didn't catch anything else and packed up to go at around 9:10. The three of us then went to the Haulover food trucks, something they've got going until 10 PM every Tuesday night and which I haven't been to in years. Despite not catching what we'd hoped for, it was cool to see Noah's almost magic touch with the Sabiki (it's supposed to be pretty easily successful, but he made it completely effortless with the fishbites) and having a good time with good friends. It was also the first time I went fishing with my new glasses, which helped me see the ripples and reflections in the water clearly for the first time in a long while. It was teh right time to use them too since we were able to see a beautiful sunset.