"We're Back! Osama Death Day Bait Bonanza!"

   Wow! it has been a long time since we have reported in, I fell I'll for the better part of the last month and am finally back at 100 percent and ready to wage a war on the fish of Florida. But a lot has changed since last season, people have come and gone and others you cant rely on, so its time to get a little bit of fresh life in Team Rebel, so a couple of new recruits have been brought in to see if they have what it takes and the drive to defy death in a lot of cases and become part of the metal militia that is Team Rebel.

  Sunday night, as me and Cody were preparing to head north on a bait gathering trip to continue our relentless pursuit of land-based big game, we heard the GREAT news of the timely demise of the infamous Osama Bin Laden, so we have therefore dedicated this report to his death like any good American would!

  We geared up and hit the highway at the crack of dawn to see if we couldn't round up a plethora of fresh jacks to hunt some Icthyans later in the week, but we were in fact met by rough seas at the legendary Juno pier, but still the ocean was pretty active, as large swarms of jacks made their way between the rolling waves just east of the "T". We sprung into action and nabbed about four ranging between 13-25lbs before the tide became low, the wind died down and the sea again became a wasteland.

   Hours passed with nothing to show but a brutal sunburn and our bait that we were trying to preserve under the shade of the fillet table with a moist autographed and personalized Guy Harvey T-shirt due to the mis-communication and lack of sleep from our celebrating the night before, we somehow managed to leave the giant cooler back at Shark Command Central, so we had to make due. Out of no where a football field sized school of silver mullet came barreling through the surf around 4 p.m. and with the lack of bait at the pier we sprung into action and were able to snag 5 lunker sized baits before the pod moved out, thus securing our bait for the waning hours of the day.

   The action was slow and the pier began to crowd, but Cody insisted on placing a 12inch mullet out on his trolly rig to see what would come up for the offering, I was skeptical at first but within twenty minutes of the initial soak, I heard a loud explosion and some other fisherman begin to shout. I leaned over the railing to see a large king-fish about 15ft out of the water with Codys mullet lodged between its razor teeth. Cody sprung into action and after a little bit of a fight and some nice tangles, Cody put this stud king on the deck.

   I was now a believer of the power of the mullet for the day, and with less than an hour until the closing of the pier I took our last mullet and deployed it down my rarely used trolly line. The mullet quickly swam down the line and away from the pier, but within a minute of the large bait leaving our view, the mullet came barreling back at the pier with a green fast moving king-fish chasing it like it was a SCUD missile. The explosion happened just a few feet from the pier and another nice hookup was solidified, and after a brief battle I put another nice king on the deck.

The action was fast but nobody else was landing any on X-raps, so Cody made a reach for our last live bait which was a runner that had been fished 4 times in the past few hours and was barely kicking. Cody was still motivated and slid it down the line with less than ten minutes left until the pier closed and the threats of Sheriffs coming to "take us off" the pier were echoed through the loudspeaker. Within two minutes of the broken blue runner hitting the water, the reel let out yet another hellacious cry and Cody was bowed up once again. He had to rush the fish to the pier as it was literally closing, and with a quick shot on the gaff another nice king hit the deck.

   We quickly gathered up our catch with our tackle haning and dragging off us looking like a giant moving birdsnest and made our way off the pier. For the first trip with Cody it went better than planned, we got a ton of fresh shark bait and got three stud kings while the rest of the pier got blanked on this day. I am looking forward to getting back into the game now as I feel the groove is finally swinging in my favor for the first time this season, so while we are feeling lucky, we are headed in search of giants...

      Until Next Time....God Bless America

  and

     Team Rebel Out!!