Being back in Miami with all the trips done and a big move on the horizon, Marcus and I made a plan to fish again together perhaps one last time before leaving for our respective law schools. Seeing as how he lives a bit closer to it, we decided to hit up the Dania Beach pier. I hadn't fished there in years, but I was excited to head back there and see what we could catch, especially with more fishing knowledge now than before. I woke up at around 6:30 to get ready and after picking up Marcus and his cousin Liam we made our way over to Angler's Bait and Tackle. The workers there were helpful in giving us tips when I asked for confirmation on the gameplan for the day I'd laid out. We picked up a couple of sabiki rigs with 1 ounce sinkers and a pound of squid to use for bait. The goal was to catch baitfish like pilchards on the sabiki and toss those out for bigger fish. Once we were all set following this quick stop we parked at the pier (which was m ore expensive than expected) and walked on, paying the 4 dollar fee each. There were schools of baitfish right at the base of the pier. We immediately put our extra rods to the side and I set up a sabiki on one of them, showing them how to jig one lightly to catch a fish. They tried unsuccessfully at first by dropping it directly down into the water, but when I took the rod and casted a bit out, lightly jigging it on the retrieve, I came up with a pilchard, or Scaled Sardine, on my first cast. I put it onto my heavy rod with a 3 way rig attached to it and casted that out. We spent the first bit of the day fishiong near the base for bait, each of us coming up with some good ones occasionally but nothing too consistent. At one point, I suggested going down further down the pier so that we could use the squid near the pilings for fish while also casting the live bait out into a more reef covered area. As Liam and I were fishing further down the pier, Marcus stayed back and kept fishing with the sabiki. Soon enough, however, Marcus called me over to check out his catch, which he had put into the bait bucket we'd brought. He noted that it was different from what we'd been catching, and a little bigger. I reached in and pulled it out to see that he'd brought in a small Yellow Jack, species #140 for me. A beautiful fish, it was cool to have brought in a new species on the day and a new type of Jack. We all kept fishing, bringing in a fe more pilchards as bait and nothing much going on about halfway down the pier. At this point I figured we should start tipping the sabiki. We brought all of our gear even further down, closer to the reef area and the T at the end of the pier (stopping short of it) and tipped the sabiki hooks with small pieces of squid. Liam dropped it and immediately got hit. It's funny since nobody on the pier was catching much until this drop. He reeled it up as soon as the rod bent over to see a small Tomtate on one of the hooks and a bigger Blue Runner on another. The Blue Runner was so frantic as it came up that its twisting resulted in getting three other hooks from the sabiki rig stuck in and wrapped around its tail. We used the Blue Runner as cut bait on a heavy rod and had to do away with the sabiki rig. Luckily, we bought two at the bait shop. The cut bat (or even live blue runners whose tails I would shred a little to hamper their swimming abilities) didn't seem to work, even with Barracudas prowling. Odd. However, after setting up the other sabiki rig, we tipped the hooks again and Marcus dropped it. He, too, started getting bites immediately and he reeled in a solid Blue Runner. Thus began the frenzy. It felt like every drop we made was immediately met with bites, and while we outfished the entire pier at the time, the rest of the fishermen on the pier were catching too. We'd get pilchards - one time I caught four pilchards in a row in consecutive drops - along with more Blue Runners and Tomtates. However, we'd also add in a few more random species beyond the Yellow Jack from earlier in the day. Liam brought in a Lookdown, I once reeled in a tiny Yellowtail Snapper, and Marcus even caught a Bermuda Chub. It just goes to show how much variety in species there are on the South Florida coastal reefs. At one point towards the end, I started to freeline a strip of squid on a circle hook. Feeding frenzies ensued, and I would flip the bail to set the hook in hard fighting Blue Runners that would try to take me under the pier. The first of these was my 700th fish. Overall we caught about 26 fish more or less before a cool wind instantly picked up and it started to pour. By then we'd had opur fill so we went back to the car to get lunch. It was a very fun day of catching. Once again, the sabiki came to the rescue and provided some interesting looks at what was living under the pier. I'm now over 700, but I'd recently been thinking about how relatively small that is. I love to fish, but I don't go as often as I'd like - I really needed to get my numbers up. Today was the day of high numbered catching I needed. I can also say, thankfully, that I've caught a great amount of species proportionately, and have fished with many different methods in many locations. I look forward to continuing my fishing journey even further as I learn and experience more.
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