We headed out of St Joe Bay this morning to troll the buoy line for kings and maybe big spanish or find a cobia on one of the buoys. It was a beautiful morning before noon and the wind got up. We managed a short king and decided to head on out to another nearby public number. As we got to the number something grabbed the plug. The Yozuri plugs we were pulling probably don't dive more than 15 feet and we were in almost 50 feet of water so there was a lot of vertical distance from the bottom up to our plugs. At first we thought it was a really big king, then we decided it must have to be a huge cobia, then we figured after an hour of tug of war and handing the rod back and forth a couple of times to rest that it had to be a large shark like a hammerhead or mako. We finally got a couple of glimpses of color could tell it wasn't long enough to be a shark but we had NO idea at this point. When it finally gave up we had a 300 plus pound Goliath grouper floating beside the boat. We took a few pictures then revived it like a big tarpon dragging it beside the boat until it headed back for the bottom on it's own power.
Neither me nor John had ever heard of anyone catching a goliath grouper while trolling for kings before. That was not something we ever thought to expect. We fished the tip of the Cape for reds and pompano with nothing but ladyfish and some beautiful scenery then hit the bay for trout. We only managed one keeper at 23". The forecasted 5kt and variable wind was howling out of the south whipping up the Bay pretty good so they missed that forecast again...
The water out in the buouy line was a beautiful clear greenish blue and we saw a lot of flying fish. We also hooked a mahimahi that jumped and threw the hook. The fish box only had a small king and a nice trout but it sure was an interesting day.
John shaking hands with the biggun after a long battle.
The outside of the Cape.
The Bay a little later got bumpy.
