Offshore Masacre -- Carrabelle 9-10-10

[dolphinatic]

After many, many, many months of no fishing, an opportunity finally presented itself to take a much needed day of for some offshore action. Stayed up till 1:30am Friday morning and was up at 3:30am to head to Carrabelle I met up with my buddy Raymond around 4:15am, loaded gear, and continued the journey. We arrived at our point of destination just before sunrise. There was just a slight breeze and the water was flat as glass

While we were waiting for the others to arrive, we got out the cast net to look for some live bait. On the first cast with the net, we were confronted by a "fisherman" at the ramp with an attitude wanting to know why we were casting and disturbing his fishing. We didn't acknowledge him. Made yet another cast that was no where near him. This caused him to turn towards Raymond and asked if he wanted his azz kicked I put down my gear and waited for the response which came rather quickly. Pleasantries were exchanged and the guy told us he would see us on the water. That was met by "No need, we can finish it here!" The guy rethought his response and decided to just do what Ray told him to do, which I will not repeat here . Me, I was ready to go. I was quickly taken back to a few of those younger nights hanging out with Troutrent at the Moon By this time the other guys had shown up and were backing the boat down to the water. We decided that we were going to have a good day regardless, and just walked away. A few minutes later, we were off

We headed SW and ran to a spot 27 miles out.....

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We got to the spot to find this....

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We baited up, and dropped down. Here's what we found.....

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All we could find were snapper after snapper....all BIG! We decided that the pain of having to catch and release such nice fish was too much to bear, so we set course for another spot. Marked this one for 10/1 We got to the next spot a short while later and found good structure holding LOTS of fish. Down went some bait......up came some fish almost immediately...

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We stayed on this spot for the next few hours and managed to get our 6 man limit of grouper consisting of gags, reds, hind & scamp. We even found a few triggers to add to the mix. We had numerous break offs too Even pulled up half a gag only to wonder what took the other half. The older gent on the boat, Tom, wanted to hook up with an AJ, so I told him that I would oblige his request. We headed off to the last spot and marked fish schooling about 80 ft. down. I told him to bait up, drop down and hold on. A few moments later, it was ON!!!

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About 20 minutes later, he was about to quit when I spotted a fish down below and told him that it was almost over and to keep hanging on....

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Here's the AJ gaffed perfectly by yours truly...

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Here's how Tom felt afterwards....

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Five minutes later, he was ready to go again We stayed on this spot wearing the AJ's out, or maybe it was the other way around

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With the day getting away from us, and a long ride ahead, we called it a day with a limit of everything we could keep. We enjoyed a smooth ride back in and never saw a wave more than 6 inches all day Couldn't ask for a better day on the water...maybe a cooler one. Water temp varied between 89 and 96 degrees Bait of the day was anything we threw at them...cigar minnows, LY's, squid, ham sandwich, etc.... Ended up with a 6 man limit of grouper, limit of AJ's, couple of nice triggerfish and a king. Don't think we could have done much else. Released numerous keeper red snapper with one going 20 lbs! Great day on the water with a great group of guys

[RodBow]

holy moly! that's what a fishing trip is supposed to be! Fantastic!

[bman]

Super trip
And the Speckle Hind is one cool fish!

One question left unanswered
Did Raymond catch any bait with the cast net?

[Tom Keels]

I just don't understand why you guys would bother another man's fish.

[PinFishKing]

Looks like you had an awesome day. I can't wait to get back. We are looking at the weekend of 9/24 to give it a shot.

[big bend gyrene]

Awesome report, Tom! Man, I need to get in the detailing business...

[SHOWBOAT]

great report Tom. Congrats on fabulous day of fishing.

[Tidedancer]

That wuz some day on the pond Tom. Thanks for sharing the stories and the photos

[dolphinatic]

Awesome report, Tom! Man, I need to get in the detailing business...

Funny....I was thinking about getting into the skin care business. Seems like there's more flexibility there

[toden]

Great day on the water! Looks like a blast

[AQUAHOLIC]

sounds like you guys had a blast,awesome report ,congrats

[FHC]

good report

[Flanders]

Awesome report and great pics...
By the way, you wasn't throwing the net over one of JT's holes were you??

[screaminseamen]

Nice....where did you guys put in at? im sure west of carrabelle.....

[dolphinatic]

Super trip
And the Speckle Hind is one cool fish!

One question left unanswered
Did Raymond catch any bait with the cast net?

Sure did. Thats what caught alot of the nicer fish. I thought for a minute there that it was going to catch him a trash fish almost as big as a few of the AJs we hauled in Some people just have no intuition. Raymond is a 15 year deputy along with the other knuckleheads I was with....and he was packing a .45