It was Marjorie`s birthday and Jim wanted to give her a fishing trip for a present. Jim and Marjorie Hoy arrived at 7:45 am Wednesday May 19th, and as we sat aboard my 24-foot pontoon boat there at the dock, I realized that all the conditions for great trout fishing were lining up just at that moment. The wind was low: 5 to 7 mph. The tide was high right then. It is the last half of the month of May. So instead of fishing up close to the mangroves and oysters for redfish, we headed out to the edge of the world - straight out past all the keys and into the Gulf. This whole coastline has a very slow drop-off as you head out into the ocean. You can go 20 miles and only have 20 feet of depth. We went out past Snake Key about three miles and onto shallow grass and sand bottom. My depth gauge read 4.5 to 5 feet. I had rigged up popping bobbers on two rods and had the floats set at about three feet each. Marjorie sat up in the bow and Jim was in the stern fishing seats. I hadn`t even poured a cup of coffee when Marjorie`s rod was singing that pretty sound as the drag gets spun backwards. Then Jim`s, then Marjorie`s, then Jim`s and over and over their rods bent. We had a lot of action all morning at the first stop. Not only was the water that ocean green color, you could see down to the bottom at about five feet. Up close inshore it`s still a little cloudy from all the rain falling out of the mouth of the Suwannee River 12 miles north of us. Not out on the edge of the ocean. The day was beautiful. Calm water and clear skies and healthy bottom. Nice live grasses and plenty of bait fish. We spent most of our four hour trip at the first spot. I moved a short distance to the east and we had a lot of action there, too. We used fresh shrimp and cut bait and I had the Gulp lures to use. Everything caught fish. Marjorie caught a 25-inch mackerel, Jim caught a 19.5-inch speckled trout. They caught many trout just under the 15-inch limit that we promptly released. We ended up with some big trout and more large mackerel to flop in the cooler for filleting back at the dock. 
Marjorie Hoy With Mackeral
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Jim and Marjorie left the dock with a big ziplock bag full of fish fillets and were off to eat some birthday fish. All the conditions were just right that day to make it easy to have a great fishing trip out here in Cedar Key. Call me and lets go.......352-221-5463 OR visit http://www.inshorefloridafishing.com and check out the pictures there. Thanks, Capt. Dan | 