The plan was to take Daniel and the Spencer boys, Kendall & Jonathan, for a kids sailfish trip in West Palm.  Our big concern was the weather as the winter fronts that bring forth the sails, also bring conditions that wouldn't be kid friendly.  Well the weather was our challenge, but in a different way.  We were greeted with bluebird weather, no wind, no waves, & to cut to the chase, no sailfish either.  We had no bites, saw no one else get a bite, nor heard of anyone with a bite or release. 

We ran south the 1st day, about 10 miles down the beach so we would drift back up towards Lake Worth Inlet (LWI).  While we occasionally saw lots of bait on the bottom machine, there was no surface action, almost no wind, and very little current.  Daniel did solidly hook up on a big bull shark, but we were looking for pointy billed fish, not pointy toothed fish.  We did manage to fly a kite late in the day, but it wasn't really flying strong enough to suspend two baits at the same time.  We finished day one with no bites, and saw no one else enjoying any better luck.

We were optimistic day two would be our day.  The forecast was for the winds to pick up as a front moved in, and we thought the change in the barometer and winds would let us introduce the boys to their 1st sail, or at least one fish for everyone to see. Well, the forecast was off, the front stalled.  We found even less wind on the 2nd day.  There were a few rain storms dotted about, but the water was like glass, there would be no kite work again today.  We bump trolled from LWI all the way up to Jupiter hoping to test some marks I had stored from last year.  We had no action, and again, saw no one else having any different results. 

With a big storm cloud looming large, we ate a quick lunch, and ran south to evade the rain.  We figured to find some bottom just outside LWI, and as a consolation prize, let the boys at least pull in some bottom fish. 

I had marked some good bottom when sailfishing last year, and found it was still a good spot. On our first drop, we reeled up fish.  The boys continued to catch various species on subsequent drops.  As the day drew closed, we had two new HOF entries:

Daniel caught a slightly short (of legal min harvest limit) African Pompano, a new & largest of species. 

And Kendall landed a Yellow Tailed Snapper for another first & largest of species. 

Congratulations to the boys for their patience & perserverance.  At 10 & 11 yrs of age, they were very good sports to put up with almost two full days of trolling with out landing a fish. 

It was a lot of work to trailer down, almost a 12 hour trip (only 9.5 were actual driving).  We left the boat down there, so we made better time coming back (7:45 moving, total time 8:35).  What a difference a 10,000 lb. boat can make!

We head back down to West Palm next week for the Atlanta Saltwater Sportsman Club's annual tournament.  We certainnly hope to change our luck then.