We had 2 nights in a slip at Marina Jack and now we were ready to head out again. We weren’t sure when we left where we would end up. We had a few places in mind and decided to just check them out and see what looked good. The first site we went to was Longboat Key. I’d heard a lot of talk about this area and how pretty the beaches are, but we’d also read that it could get crazy on the weekends and some anchorages had their share of derelict boats. As we slowly cruised through the area checking out its potential, we had to agree with all of the reviews. It was CRAZY! Here on a beautiful weekend were dozens of boats zipping around. Others were beached on a sandbar chillin in their beach chairs while kids and dogs frolicked in the shallows. People were fishin, drinking, partying and having a great time. Cool. But we weren’t going to beach Subject to Change on a sandbar. That’s something we try to avoid. Right? So looking at the anchorages where big boys like us go, we did see a number of boats that looked like their anchors had not felt the sea air in many, many moons. Some were obviously lived on and others looked like they had been abandoned. As we crossed the Longboat Key inlet, we found a great looking cove by the Sheriff’s office. Active Captain labeled it Coquina Cove. We decided to keep going to an area a bit quieter and decided to come back here on a week day. So we continued north up the ICW to Tampa Bay and then turned southeast into the Manatee River. About a mile in we dropped the anchor by the DeSoto National Monument.
We took Maggie to shore to investigate the area. The park told the story of Hernandez DeSoto who first attempted to colonize the area in 1539. There were a lot of people fishing the cove from the beach, from docks and from boats. We figured there had to be some good fishing in that cove. A local told us where to find live bait and we took the dink into Bradenton in the morning to buy some live shrimp.
As usual we saw some interesting boats anchored.
We took the dink out near the ICW channel hoping to get on the ledge where the current would be flowing more. It didn’t take too long before I got a hit. The fish grabbed the hook and danced in the air. I don’t think I’ve ever caught a fish that jumped and danced like this one did. It was a fun one to catch. Now all we had to do was figure out what it was. Tim started making phone calls and texting a pic of the fish – Cousin Andy, Capt. Don, fishing fanatic Greg. Meanwhile, Tim caught another. We had to know if this was an eating fish, or just a fun catching fish. Was it dinner? The decision was we had caught Lady Fish. Not dinner. We were told the meat was very oily and good as bait, but not good eating. We kept the two we had and later cut them up for bait. The meat is in the freezer for a later outing.
After 2 nights at DeSoto, we headed back toward Longboat Key. It was now Monday and we hoped the area would be a bit quieter. Sure enough, there was hardly a sole there. No boats were in the cove we picked out a few days earlier. We slowly slid in over a sandbar and dropped the hook for the night.
The original plan was to stay here for 2 nights, but watching the forecasts, we saw predictions of 20+ winds coming our way. A quick call to Marina Jack got us an extension on our reservation for a mooring ball. Instead of coming in Wednesday as planned, we were going to head in on Tuesday. We wanted to be settled in before the winds picked up.
Thinking of mooring balls, for those of you who aren’t familiar, I’ll try to explain. As you drive the boat forward toward the ball, one person (me) hangs over the side with a long boat hook and has to hook the nasty line that is often floating in the water. You pull the line up and run one of your dock lines through the eye at the end. You attach the ends of your dock line to cleats on both sides of the bow. It is best to have at least 2 dock lines through the eye for safety.
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