Midnight Friday - Alarm goes off. It's time to get up and hit the road. In 6 short hours, Kerry (my brother) and I we will be in Panama City, ready to fish. We load some leftover LYs, bonita, and other assorted bait from earlier in the summer, brew a pot of coffee, and hit the road.
7:00 am Saturday - We are at the launch and load the gear. There is almost no wind as the sun starts to come up. We load up, catch a few pinfish, and head out to our first spot - a public bridge truss to see what the storms have blown in.
8:00 - We are at the first spot and beign a short drift. Right away we catch one bluefish, one red snapper and then a legal gag. The action slows a little bit, but then the flat line takes off - oops forgot to set the drag correctly - fish breaks off. We work the truss for a while longer, picking up a beeliner or snapper here and there. The flat line gets hit once more and this time we reel in half a king, with a big 'cuda following him in. By now, the other boaters are starting to show up and we have 2 other boats on the same spot. We decide that 3 is a crowd and that we will go look for some natural bottom or unmarked spots. As we go crank up, 3 peanuts swim up and we quickly toss them a chunk of cigar minnow. We hook all 3, but 2 pull off after acrobatic jumps. Time top head out.
10:30 - We put out some high spped trollers and point the boat south. After an hour of so, we find an area that has some hard bottom and fish it, getting a nibble here and there, but nothing solid.
1:00 - We decide to just cruise and watch the bottom machine for some good spots. After maybe 10 minutes, we pass a very good show of fish and bottom and circle back to investigate. We set up a drift over the spot and then things get interesting. First pass, I get a chicken snapper, but I look over and Kerry is solid into something. A few minutes later, a nice red grouper is in the box. We drift the area and with each pass pick up a fish or so. After a couple hours, we are ready to head in and relax a bit. The cooler is near full - final tally = 8 red snapper to 10 lbs, 7 grouper to 12 lbs, one mahi, a handful of beeliners, and a bonita (bait for the next day). Today Kerry is high hook, with the biggest snapper and 5 grouper.
5:30 am Sunday - Alarm goes off and its time to hit it again. We load up and get in the jeep, but the battery is DEAD. No problem, we get one of the spares from the boat and are on our way. We run by Walmart to get some bait, but they have NONE left. We hit Half Hitch, get some cigars, and head back to the ramp.
7:15 am - Finally on the water and this time we head straight for the same area.
8:30 - We arrive int he same area, but today the wind is blowing a little and we are gonna drift fast. We drift a few times and pick up 2 nice snapper and a nice grouper. Next drift, Kerry gets slammed and works up a nice 15 lb red grouper, the biggest yet in the boat. We decide to anchor and put out a little chum. We fish for another hour or so, then head back in. Final tally - 5 red and black snappers to 7 lbs, 7 grouper to 15 lbs, and one king.
Check out the pics.
Day 1
Day 2
Another great weekend on the water.
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Hand's Tied
--If they weren't, I'd be fishing every day..