Last Updated on May 31, 2019
I spent the day fishing on Daytona Beach’s Main Street Pier. This is a location that I fish from quite often, some would call me a regular. Well, today I brought along 2 poles with me. One to fish the bottom with live shrimp and one to float some live shrimp under a cork.
I spent about 10 minutes getting the rigs set up. I first cast the bottom rig out and let it soak. Then I dropped the cork in the water to only have it blasted quickly by a Blue Fish. On my second cast with the cork another blue nailed it. This Blue Fish was about 18 inches, not bad for a Daytona Beach Blue Fish. This pattern continued on for about two hours. Constantly pulling in Blue Fish after Blue Fish. While I am not a fan of Blue Fish meat, I do very much enjoy catching them because they are great fighters, so for me, this is a good time.
Meanwhile, the pole that was set to soak on the bottom has done nothing more than soak. I reeled it in to check my bait, it was still there but the shrimp was dead. I re-baited and cast it out again. This time I was hoping for a little more action on that pole! The floating rig started to slow down when I had a very hard and very fast hit. I only saw a glimpse of the fish and I thought it was a ladyfish; it was long, slender and fast. I put a new shrimp on, as soon as it hit the water, the same type hit. I fought the fish briefly and pulled in a nice keeper Spanish mackerel.
The very next cast I ended up fighting what I thought was a large fish, but it turned out to be a 15-inch pompano! SCORE! I love pompano meat, and love the fight they put up! I wanted to get my line back in the water as soon as I could in hopes of snagging another one! And I did just that! As soon as the new shrimp splashed a fish nailed it and the fight was on! This fish fought a little harder than the previous one and really had me going! After about 3-4 minutes I got my first look at the fish and it was a nice pompano. About a 17 inch fish!
Well, things started to slow down for a while and I finally caught a fish on the bottom rig. A 23-inch bonnet head shark. Nothing to brag about at all, but at least that rig brought in something! As I was releasing the shark, my float disappeared! I grabbed the pole and a fast fish took off running! It was another Spanish Mackerel. By now it is about noon, I have 4 keepers in my cooler and it is getting a bit hot so I decided to call it a day!
Total Tally:
10 Blue Fish
2 Keeper Pompano
2 Keeper Mackerel
Daniel Hagan has been fishing Florida’s shores since 1985 and writing about it for more than 20 years. As Managing Editor of FloridaShoreFishing.com, he shares firsthand experience covering surf and pier fishing, tackle, techniques, and Florida’s coastal species.
