John Rowe and Ed Stell headed out for Dolphin on 2/26. Great Weather light chop. We had a bag of frozen Hoo, stopped on a patch to get more. They came hard and we only picked up another dozen. Rigged a few baits started trolling around 9:30. No chunks cut, No spinning rods ready.

THAN WE SAW IT !
All hell broke loose

Got one to the boat. Lots of friends followed her in. Scrambling to toss chunks and dig out Spinning gear hooks etc.  But before we got our S#@& together they left. SLAM a corner rod with an Islander went off. A big Fish? NO a Trash can, NO. A big Sea Turtle hooked in the front flipper. Backed the boat down to him and got the hook out. Started to reel in the other bally hoo. I'll be, it had a fish on and the whole gang came with her. Now sort of ready, we chunked into a feeding frenzy. Hooking and losing fish.

Made several drifts. Taking fish with each pass. Things started to slow down so we used live hoo to fire them up. Hard to hook the schoolies. Tail hooked them and that helped. 2 rigged baits and no chunks, so we trolled out of the area, trolled for about 2 hours no hits but a well needed rest and beer break. On the way back we passed the tree again taking 3 more fish on islanders. NO chunks NO rigged baits. So we headed for the barn.

End of the day tired, soaked, and smelling like Key Largo fisheries. We now faced  major boat and fish cleaning. Plus reel repairs. By 6:30 we had a great grilled dolphin dinner. 21 fish boated, 3 tossed back and numerous missed fish. Being prepared is over rated!