St. Marks 11-17-09 Grouper (Gags)

[Jhults11]

After having to move all last weekend during the perfect weather window, I felt as though I blew it for not being able to go. I saw the forecast was still calling to be good through tuesday and increase the rest of the week as the front neared. Game time decision had myself, my buddy Jeremy and Matt (budda) in search of some Gags at first light. We pushed off at daylight and the game plan was to troll most of the day. The plugs were stretch 25 in pink, blue/silver and firetiger...didn't matter..they all work well! The seas were not 1 ft early...more like 2-3 with an occasional 4 thrown in! We looked and looked and looked for several hours with only short gags, small sea bass and giant Lizards to show for. Finally I marked some really good looking bottom at 11:00 am and we doubled up with a short and our first keeper gag at 23.5". Spun around and trolled back over the spot. Bam - Bam; two more short gags. It looked promising so we threw a buoy on it and decided to bottom fish with dead stuff. It wasn't 2 minutes and jeremy missed his first bite and his second bite had him pinned to rail and broke off in the rocks by a monster! I went ghetto style and dropped a bait right where he was, soon as it hit the bottom it was on! I was pinned to rail pulling on my biggest ever gag, tug o war for 3-4 minutes and finally jeremy sunk the gaff into Gagzilla. My personal best gag went 32.5" and 18lbs. Man what a best! The funny thing was the dam thing had jeremys hook and leader in the corner of his mouth..lol! We pulled 2 more off that spot and found a spot within 200ft of the previous one to finish out limit. Man what a day! A blast was had by all and we hope to put it on them again soon! -Tight Lines

Final Tally:

6 Gags to 32.5", 12 Short Gags, 6 keeper Sea Bass


Me and My biggest Gag ever!

Again.

Jeremy with his second.

Matt with his 1st.

Me with gagzilla again.

Jeremy with his best on the day.

Our catch on the day.

[bman]

Awesome! Got to love catchin your buddies fish!

[fish finder]

Glad your persistance paid off, Nicely! Also excited to see that the Gags seem to be moving in closer, at least in Apalachee Bay. Welcome to the .net

[big bend gyrene]

Jhults11, how deep? Not looking to find your spot so don't care about specific area, just that lots of us haven't found the keepers shallow yet so curious to hear how shallow/deep.

Great report and awesome photos, by the way!

[Jhults11]

35-38 ft. They should be on the move even shallower in the next few days to a week with water temp dropping even more. Good luck!

[Tidedancer]

Great report and photos. I was out there on the 17th but did not go out to that depth and got a late start. But a good day on the water just the same.

[Jhults11]

Yeah, the pressure was falling big time with the approaching front and it really gotem fired up! They always eat better b4 a system rolls in!!

[Flanders]

[qoutrage]

Nice write up and pictures, thanks. Glad y'all had some luck.

[ufgator2]

There was still pods of bait in 24-30', earlier in the am we found hungry grouper, on the outgoing tide, but on the incoming tide the bait was back and the bite died. Lizard fish were more aggressive that SEIU members beating up on old people at a tea party