THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

So the hump it was for the next five days, mainly for the AJ's, but with a bit of trolling on the way out
for dorado and black fin tuna, and time-outs from the lure dropping, including one whole day to try for
the sharks.
As with Key west, we took it in turns to drop our jigging lures, which were hit the instant they got down
there. So prolific were these fish that if one came adrift down deep, its replacement would be there
within seconds.
With so many huge hard sluggers up to ninety pounds in weight, you literally needed a break between
fish. So much so, that at times the arguments between us was not that it's my turn next, but rather, it
isn't me next, as each of us tried to grab a bit of extra R&R to give the arms and shoulders time to
recover.
And so it went on drift after drift, day after day. It was manic. Even the commercial boats which were
knocking seven bells out of the amberjack population appeared to be having no effect, though I hear
that eventually they did, which is very sad.
We put all of our fish back. Jim had a long needle onboard which was inserted close to the pectoral fin
to puncture the expanded swim bladder inside and release the gas allowing fish to get back down,
something tagging had shown to have at least some measure of success.
Well, I say we put all our fish back,
but that isn't strictly true. We did keep
an odd one for shark bait, which
seems bizarre when you see a forty
pound amberjack flapper being put
out. But that's what Jim Taylor did.
Not that it made much difference. For
despite his reputation as the number
one shark hunter in these parts, we
never saw a shark, which was
disappointing, but perhaps as well for
the sharks sake as he was taking no
prisoners.
He had a pump action twelve gauge
Charlie Holden, Amberjack
shotgun onboard which he used as an
attitude adjuster while the shark was
still in the water, and which he liked to put a couple of cartridges through each morning to 'clean' the
barrels out. But that unfortunately was the only action the shot gun received.
The next time we fished Islamorada, we decided to go self-drive and explore inshore. So we rented a
small boat from Bud 'n' Mary's, which if I'm honest, wasn't the most sea-worthy craft I've ever fished
from. It was US Coastguard approved with full in-built buoyancy, but the free-board was way too low,
and although we caught lots of very good fish, we felt a little restricted as to where we could go.
Despite all that, we pottered around the flats and channels fishing small live and dead-baits caught in
our chum slick, which along with frozen squid and live shrimps bought at Bud's bait store, brought us
all manner of stuff including lots of sharks and stingrays.
We also went out to the buoy at Alligator Reef where we caught plenty of small to medium sized
barracuda's, and on one occasion, I jumped aboard a bigger faster boat with Graeme which we took way
down to Tennessee Buoy where the barracuda's were huge, and again we caught plenty, but not the
really big boys.
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