# A Venture Out to Cudjoe Key - 2010



## paint it black




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## paint it black




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## AJB

Great report and some really nice pics.


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## MATT

Nice trip...can I come next year?


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## paint it black

> Nice trip...can I come next year?



I think we're going to plan to go back in the summer.
Hope for better weather to chase the bones.


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## DuckNut

Hey bud...before you go there again, give me a ring, I have some info that you might find valuable.


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## james_bingham3

man we live in paridise , nice pics, great looking boat , still wish had redone the johnsen , miss ur peacock bass reports


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## newbie_dave

Great Report!!


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## CatchBravo

See you got a Team Daiwa Pluton have one myself and theyre awesome! 


> My buddies  Bernard, Chris, and I decided to do the yearly lower Keys trip.
> 
> We had planned to hit up the ocean side flats in search of bones.
> But as the date  approached, we were doomed with gusty winds.
> We figured we'd try to make the best of it anyway and did some fishing.
> 
> We arrived in the keys on Wednesday, and made a stop at Jewfish Creek ramp to splash the Copperhead in south Florida salty water.
> 
> We fished for a little bit and Chris managed two keeper grovers on a chartreuse MirrOdine.
> 
> We continued on our trek south and made it to the house we rented just before 11pm.
> The winds were a strong 20-30mph.
> The next morning, we wake up expecting to get some fishing in and were greeted by 25-35mph winds and every bit of 35mph!
> 
> Chris and Bernard decided to brave it out and hit up some sheltered areas and managed to jump a small poon and stuck some cudas.
> 
> Finally on Friday the wind had calmed down a bit.
> We were happy to see the 15-20mph winds.
> We launched out the south ramp of the 7 mile bridge and were on our way.
> 
> Chris anchored up to chum up and drift some shrimp at one of the bridges as Bernard and I tried going out to pole some flats.
> We didn't see anything on the flats so we ended up poling all the way back to where Chris was and tied up next to him.
> 
> Managed to get a bunch of snapper and some grouper.
> Only about 6 mangrove snapper were keepers.
> Chris got a really nice one.
> 
> Got back home and Chris threw out some frozen mullet and caught a little shark.
> 
> 
> 
> The jacks and snapper were piled on the bridges.
> One could see schools of small minnows being crushed by jacks.
> 
> 
> But enough of the gibberish.
> We finally had decent wind (15-20mph) again on Saturday.
> But had poor vis because it was extremely cloudy.
> We decided to take the Copperhead into the back country side of Cudjoe Key.
> 
> We ran about 7 miles and came up onto a flat.
> As we pole around the flat, we came up on a school of bones and spooked them because we could not spot them early enough.
> Low vis, no casting or poling platform, and strong winds made it tough to spot anything more than 10' away.
> 
> We keep on poling the flat and again spooked another school of some big bones easily 8-10lbs.
> 
> I was a bit upset that we couldn't get on some fish without spooking them, but it was still great testing the abilities of the Copperhead.
> 
> There was completely no hull slap at all.
> Poling into the winds, sideways across the winds, or with the wind.
> Absolutely no hull slap.
> Floated in 8 inches with no problem!
> I got in ankle deep water and it only hit the bottom when I would stand on one side of the skiff.
> It was in 4" of water slightly touching softly on the bottom.
> So it should pole good in 6" of water.
> 
> It was apparent that I'm not going to be doing much without a poling platform, so I cannot wait to get it back to Mel to put the platform on there.
> 
> On this trip, we had hoped for great weather for chasing some bones and maybe permit.
> We managed to get a lot of mangrove snapper and fight some tough jacks around the bridges.
> Saw double digits in tarpon rolling around the bridges but no eats.
> We threw shrimp, crabs, and pinfish at them to no avail.
> 
> We woke up this morning to find a 6mph wind, and blue bird sky with the sun as bright as it gets.
> 
> Of course, the day we were leaving and had no time to fish we had the perfect weather.
> 
> We finally found where the bones hang out, so we're trying to schedule another trip in a couple months and hope for better weather!
> 
> But until then, the Copperhead will be seeing a lot of South Biscayne Bay and Flamingo.
> 
> 
> Since not much fishing went on, I took a lot of pics!
> Maybe too many!!
> 
> Some are a bit grainy, but screw it.


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## Michael

Great report! I would caution you about losing your boat there if you do not tie it up to keep it from getting caught under their short pier pilings. Their contract is iron clad if your boat goes down on their property they are not responsible. I know of 3 other boats besides mine that were totaled there!


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