Ken Strochek's Trip

Ken Strochek has fished with me dozens of times on the L&H and he is a pleasure to fish with. This time he brought his son Jason and the infamous Walter along. Ken has been fishing longer than I have been alive and always has great stories of past fishing adventures. He has caught his share of sailfish in his day and wants nothing to do with them. Ken only wants eating fish and lets you know this by deducting from the tip everytime a sailfish is caught. We got a ton of bait very easily and went to try for some kings first thing. While other boats were struggling with bait the L&H stayed busy with double and triple header kingfish in the ten to fifteen pound range. In the middle of the kingfish flurry I spotted a frigate bird diving in very shallow water. The boys pulled everything in and we raced to see what the bird was over. Our decision was rewarded with a pair of twenty pound dolphin that quickly made their way to the fishbox. Again we resumed kingfishing and shortly there after we had our limit. Just before leaving we pulled up a nice mutton snapper much to Kens delight. With good conditions I figured we should try for a permit, a fish that is one of Kens favorite. Again the decision was a good one and we soon found ourselves hooked up to a thirty pounder. After a tough battle the big permit was in the box. After another lengthy battle we pulled the hook on a second permit just feet from the boat. I felt as if our luck had run out. James and I searched and searched for one more fish, but nothing. Finally, just before we were about to head elsewhere we found a truly large permit well over thirty pounds. The fish inhaled the bait and we put alot of pressure on the fish right from the start. The tactic worked to perfection and in only fifteen minutes we had the monster permit in the boat. We decided to go look for dolphin and about fifteen miles offshore, found a piece of floating debris with thirty nice fish on it. Wes, Greg and James worked together with our anglers like a well oiled machine and we caught nearly every mahi in the school. It was a great day with ALOT of eating fish for our friend Ken, and without catching a single sailfish everyone was happy!