What I Learned This Week,

Standard method used to catch Kingfish:

1. Make a kingfish rig, which is just three hooks attached together. Do this by opening up the hook eye just a little, putting tghe barb of another hook through it, then closing the eye back up. Like this. Use 5/0 size hooks.
2. Attach the rig to a leader - wire or mono, your choice. I usually go with wire as my reels are spooled with mono line anyway.

3. Put a somewhat heavy sinker on the line. Say 2 ounces. Do not tie the sinker to the line, just thread the line through the sinker so it can slide up and down the line.

4. Attach the three hook rig to the end of the line. I am a big fan of the clench knot because it is easy to tie and fairly strong.

5, Now for the fun part. Find a boat and head out to the offshore fishing grounds. About three miles off Key Biscayne is a good place to try. You want to be in water 120 - 130 feet deep. No deeper than 140 feet. Turn off the engine after you set your drift.

6. Rig a sardine to your triple hook setup. Each hook should be in the bait.

7. Drop the bait to the bottom. When the sinker hits the bottom, close the reel and give it 5 or so cranks so that your bait is just off the bottom.

8. Watch the depth sounder. If you drift into shallower water, remember to give some more cranks to the reel to keep your bait just off the bottom. If you drift into water shallower than 80 feet or deeper than 140 feet move the boat and reset your drift.

9. Catch a fish. In theory. In reality this may or may not happen. It is hard to predict. Sometimes you catch the fish, and sometimes you just go out and not catch anything and your GPS and anchor windlass breaks and you say a few bad words but then you figure out how to get the anchor line free of the windlass so you do not have to cut the line and lose your anchor so you feel a little better but still it SUCKS ASS that the windlass is not working, and it really sucks mega ass that the GPS stopped working.

Something else happens today. I can not exactly remember what that is however. I must be getting older or something (little hint there). They say the memory is the first thing to go. But now I will not forget the standard method to catch a kingfish, because I wrote it down. Of course I might forget I wrote it down in which case it will not do me a whole lot of good.

So far 2008 is sucking. I realize that we are only 11 days into the year, but the 11 days have sucked. Things better pick up and stop sucking or else I will be VERY GRUMPY this year
That is me. Being grumpy. Cause so far this year is sucking.