. I left the moorings headed back to Ok. bay to meet up with Capt. clarence Thomason as I would be fishing aboard the "southern comfort", a 25' grady white.I arrived at the bayside marina and after the normal conversation was headed towards open water. I was excited about the trip, my first commercial fishing, with two very experienced shallow water seaman. The word was we had contracted 200 lbs. of grouper with mineral springs seafood, we had to catch. The capt. and mate looked at my 7' rod/330 gti, and especially my 9/0 eagle claw cirle hooks with some verbal skepticism. I assured them I would catch my share(I hoped).
First drop was around 9 am. The capt. caught a pair of keepers as did the mate. A few fish later I begin to worry. Thirty minutes and I've done nothing. My partners are schooling me! After 5 o 6 fish we the windlass is spinning and we're off to another #. The plan was to fish only new #'s and take only 4 or 5 fish off of each spot. We kept nothing under 26". If it looked like a measurement was warranted we put the fish back.
The second # I got rolling. Landing the 1st of 3- 20 lb. class red grouper I boated on the day. I also boated a 2 gags in the 15 pound range. We ended up fishing ten numbers, all 10 we had never fished, 3 were found traveling to others.
To summarize the trip, it was absolutely awesome! I held my own with the commercial guys and them some. We harvested around 300 pounds of grouper and never caught more than 5 or 6 on a spot. Large fish was 24 pound red, largest gag was 17. The guys were interested enough in the circles to ask for a few to try. I figure I landed between 50-60 grouper and did not have one, I repeat not one, gut hooked fish! We fished out of bait, 40 pounds of chub mackeral. Fished the last spot with grunt skins. Sean(1st mate) caught a lizard fish and said he had a vietnemese charter last week that said the lizard fish was great bait. We cut him up and dropped on what would be a triple-keeper hook up! Coincidence? maybe, but I'll be keeping my lizards from now on thank you. I couldnt do what I did saturday for a living but boy was it fun. I'm whipped, my hands are shredded, my backs sore.......if he calls I'll do it again next week!
