Playalinda Beach Blues

Since the bluefish are in the surf I decided to take advantage of the high tide and catch a few for dinner tonight.

I had some finger mullet in the freezer along with a relatively fresh bag of shrimp, so I loaded up a couple of rods and headed to Playalinda Beach to see if they were hitting as good as they were yesterday.

I stopped briefly at lots #1 and #8, but there were too many beach goers, so I drove up to lot #10 where there are usually not as many people around the surf fishermen.

I spotted Harry Potter who had three rods put out and several other fishermen up and down the beach.

The tide was on the way in, so I took some time watching the wave action trying to determine where a good spot may be to fish.

I picked an area where there was a decent washout and more crushed shells than sand and walked down to place my sand spikes.

The air temperature was 80 degrees and there was a good wind at my back when I put out my baits.

I put out one "river" rod with a 3 oz. pyramid sinker and two small hooks baited with peeled shrimp for whiting or pompano.

The second rod, a 10 foot surf rig with an Okuma reel and 30 pound Power Pro was rigged for finger mullet.

The waves made detecting a bite tough and I lost several shrimp on the river rod before pulling it in so I could concentrate on the surf rig with the finger mullet.

After losing several baits, I started cutting the mullet in half and began to catch fish.

The larger blues were about 75 yards from the beach, and they were definitely hungry.

I landed several bluefish in the 12" to 16" category, kept 5 for dinner, and missed at least a dozen more to short strikes.

When I got to Playalinda Beach this afternoon, it was around 3:30pm and by 5:30pm the beach was barren as I was packing it up getting ready to leave.

Meanwhile, Harry said he was missing some fish and catching a few whiting and bluefish.

I took these short videos of him as I was leaving, for posterity, or something like that....

Anyway, I had a great time catching bluefish in the surf and may come back tomorrow if I can get away from the house long enough.


Till next time, Tight Lines and bent rods.