After days of thunderstorms over the Big Bend area, the water in the bay was dark and cloudy. The dark and cloudy water, however, didn’t stop the pinfish in the grass flats from biting our bait rigs. We loaded the live well and headed to a few of my favorite spots 20 to 30 miles south of East Pass. At one spot, I had a small red snapper on the line which was being chased by a larger fish. A few feet below the boat, that larger fish, which turned out to be a 4 to 5’ barracuda, sheared off the rear three-quarters of the snapper. The ‘cuda then stuck its face out of the water right beside the boat and snapped its teeth as if to ask for the rest of its meal. We obliged the ‘cuda and the snapper head disappeared moments after being tossed into the water.
We moved on to another spot where we’ve caught 17 pound red snapper in the past. We hardly got a bite there despite lots of fish appearing on the sonar. That pattern largely repeated itself at other spots until we found the “LoserJ” hole. At the LoserJ hole, most of us started landing red snapper or mangrove snapper. But then there was J. We would hear him grunt and moan as he strained to reel in a BIG fish only to lose it time and time again. At some point after the hole earned its name, J’s luck changed. He landed two red grouper and a red snapper. Further in, J. also caught a mahi-mahi on a 2 oz. knocker rig baited with squid.
What worked and what didn’t. Once we found the fish, live bait and frozen LYs caught fish. When targeting lane snapper, 2/0 circle hooks work, but it’s hard to keep fresh never frozen shrimp on the hook. My attempt at targeting red snapper using a 1.5 oz. circle hook jighead with live bait was unsuccessful, but I will try it again. My new attempt at building an underwater camera tripod was successful and I’ll share more details and pictures in the future. Keeping the boat in secure storage at Martin Marine, which is right beside the Carrabelle Airport and 2 to 3 miles to the boat ramps, also works. It saves me the time, fuel, and trouble of having to trailer the boat to Tallahassee for storage or to Perry for service.
Another great day on the water.
Our haul for the day: 5 red snapper, 2 red grouper, 3 mangrove snapper, 4 lane snapper, 2 porgies, 1 vermilion, and 1 mahi-mahi. (One other thing, at my urging we released a bunch of smaller legal-sized red snapper because I knew that we would catch a few tanks. One of my buddies is sore about this.)
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