After Big Bend Gyrene put Celeste on her first ever cobia; which tied his boat recorded with a 35 pounder, we had to repay the favor by inviting him on the Celestial Crab for a snapper/grouper trip. As luck would have it Celeste’s uncle, Charlie provided us with a great base of operations to work out of this past weekend by renting our friend from the FS forum, “River Dogs” house on the Carrabelle River for 5 days for us, the kids, my mother in law and friend Bobbie. Charlie has fished fresh water and even salt water most of his life and being one of those Illinoisans, we tried to get him offshore for a quick mornings worth of fishing, problem is he has been told by the dermatologist that after a number of melanoma cases he has to be out of the sun during peak times. So early it was, BBG was gracious enough to meet us at the house well before sun up and help Celeste mate for Charlie and then after returning him to the hill we figured we go back and try again DEEP for just the three of us.
Everything worked out well, BBG was early and helped get the boat down river, rigged up to catch bait and just as I was approaching Dog Island the light bulb went off and I remembered I forgot all the frozen bait at the house!
Since this is not our normal fishing trailer I was a little distracted having to motor a half hour down river and no way did I want to do that again so we woke our oldest son to get him to drop it off at the public ramp for us. After being one of the first if not first rec. boat out of the river with the sun just breaking the bays horizon we were now about 20th and the sun up quite a bit before some additional “live” bait hit the deck and we headed offshore. Charlie being an easy going guy just enjoyed the runs back and forth and eventually the sea basses that he caught at our first number and was content with that. I however was not and pushed his time on the water a little trying to get him hooked up to something a little larger, finally with sun and tide high he got a big hit on a hardtail I was looking for, unfortunately it came unbuttoned shortly after hit rod tip about hit the water. He was happy with that and so we drove him back to the boat ramp during the high tide lull. Everyone had a little break at the facilities and BBG, Celeste and me headed back after them, our bait spot was so good in the morning we couldn’t resist another shot at some good baits and quickly filled the well again with live baits. Pointed the bow south and headed to 90ft without stopping which it turns out may NOT have been the smart thing to do because my 90 ft snapper numbers were barren, I don’t know what’s going on out there, but I know the were snapper here, so we searched a little and found a nice red grouper to take a bait. Then a cobia shows himself while Celeste is reeling up to check on her bait drops it back and he follows only to hit Johns bait as he was bringing it up to try and get it into the mix. A fairly short battle on grouper tackle provided us a nice keeper cobia in the box. OK not the Snapper I wanted but who can complain!! I LIKE cobia!!
We abandon our deeper numbers and hit some spots on the way back as by this time with all the running the day is getting late and still no red snapper. I am struggling as a Captain trying to repay john and didn’t even know until later he had never caught one before; thank God since then the pressure really would have been on me.
We stopped at one spot and had a few sea basses and big grunt and I think some short Red grouper, and Celeste even managed a keeper flounder, but no snapper so I kept easing in toward the islands picking numbers as I went. As I approach a decent winter spot I see a little blip on the bottom “zoomed” side of the sounder and John and I look at each other and nod, so I whip the C Crab around and try and locate this SMALL little relief, I find it with a little green on top (meaning live bottom on my Furuno) so John and Celeste shoot some baits down. Seconds later John’s rod is getting tapped and then hit hard, he goes high and tight on a nice fish and the tell tale bounce bounce bounce of the rod starts and I tell him you have a snapper on my friend only THEN does he mention he’s never caught one! “OH Crap now you tell me” I said, just keep the pressure on and reel him up! John is no stranger to fighting large fish, but is amazed that this fish doesn’t’ want to come up out of the depths and finally gets him to bend to the will of the rod pulling him into the awaiting boga. We plop the 22 inch fish on the ruler and high fives latter here is John (BBG’s) first ever American Red Snapper!! A Fine Job Marine!!
Happy crew celebrates with one more stop on the way in and seems the crew put some stink on their baits because the Captain was the hot hand for a while as I caught and released 3 just short red grouper in 10 minutes or less. Although a long day, It was fun for me and Celeste and we were very fortunate to have such great company for crew…Thanks, to my crew Celeste, John and Charlie and River Dog and Tide Dancer who helped me out with the right sized hitch (left at house) in order for me to put the boat in the water! The Carrabelle and forum communities have certainly provided us with some great memories and assistance, thanks to you all!
Ranaman AKA, Salty Joe, or the Crab
One of these days I'll make it out there with ya. I was there the night before ya'll went this time though.....trying to go back this weekend.
That shared report wouldn't be complete without adding that in addition to the keeper flounder, she SLAYED the seabass. Absolutely caught the biggest seabass I've seen caught in the big bend and caught about 5 for ever 1 the rest of us caught. 