For once NOAA was pretty spot on early in the day. Headed somewhat north and put a bunch of pinfish in the live well, I swear my wife enjoys catching pinfish as much as anything else. She used a single hook & squid, I tied on a sabiki tipped with squid and was able to catch 2-3 at a time in 4' - 6'. Also caught 2 catfish and 1 trout on the sabiki. Water inshore was pretty stained.
Headed due west and was able to run up to 40mph... that just doesn't happen often... stopped at some shallower numbers roughly 45' or so and handed her a slow pitch rod. Lots of red "hard" bottom on the Garmin, before I could get my jig tied on she had landed a large grunt, short gag and a keeper red grouper, all 3 hit as soon as the jig hit bottom and moved 1x. Moved spots a few times in the general area but not a lot happening other than grunts. Saw 3-4 other boats in the area.
Headed out deeper and wind picked up, nothing crazy but a little roly-poly.
It was hot.
Despite some fish app projections of a major feed mid-day it was pretty much dead where we were.
Mid afternoon I decided to reel in my live pinfish and probably 15'-20' up from the bottom I got slammed... good weight and my 30# leader popped. I told my wife that was a big snapper and retied with 50# leader. Shortly after same thing happened to her. After getting her upgraded to 50# leader I dropped down again and within a few seconds got hammered, felt the weight and it came off. Dropped a 3rd pinfish down and it should have folded on the second pinfish as this time it came in the boat. Very nice ARS, I didn't measure it as it was clearly legal but got it on ice and went back to fishing thinking they were turning on.
Never got another snapper, and it was hot.
Wife started squealing and landed a 24 1/2 gag. it was not hefty but legal so into the ice he went, it was still hot.
We ended up moving in short jumps sometimes 50' others 1/2 mile all over the general area I was in roughly 62'-65' and we would get 1-2 hits and then nothing. Did I mention it was HOT!
We landed a bunch of grunts, 6 keeper red grouper who got to go back
, the 1 ARS and her gag. When I got back to the marina, tied up and walked over to Roy's for some AC, water/tea, and dinner. Cooled off some then I cleaned up the boat and then started cleaning fish, I noticed the ARS was at least 3"-4" longer than the gag so better than I first thought. Cleaning fish at the marina around 7 I was still pouring sweat under the shade. Didn't see a whole lot of fish being cleaned at the marina but it was late. The scallop cleaners were walking around looking for work while we were there. Water temp of 86.8 in 62' of water... it was hot!
I really haven't fished offshore SH since before Idalia, fished Mexico Beach some last summer (and it was hot)and caught lots of snapper and had sharks take a lot. I found it strange that spots where I have caught ARS off of SH in years past were not productive at all. Very unusual to drop a cut bait or a live pinfish down and not at least catch a short ARS. Several folks have said the water temps have pushed them further out, seems a little unlikely imho but who knows.
I suspect much of my struggle was a lack of recent fishing so I'm going to try to remedy that, will definitely try deeper early on. I'm ready for some cooler weather.
