, my two daughters, Megan and Paige and our friends, Brett, Janet and Amber Maxwell loaded up and headed out for a beautiful day. After last week, I thought I'd concentrate on doing some trolling for grouper and maybe hit some reefs for some AJ action. Passed up the K-Tower as there were already 6 boats, too crowded for me, and started trolling when we hit 60ft. We didn't have to wait long as the grouper were hungry and chasing down our stretch 30's every couple of minutes. After a couple of shorts, my fiancee put a nice keeper in the box. 
WOW! What a catch, nice fish too! 
After a couple more passes my youngest, 11 year old Paige, was ready to try for her first grouper. As I yelled to get ready, both lines went off. Both fish went in the box with Paige's a beauty going 30" and right at 15lbs, the largest so far. Look at that grin, another grouper gal is born.
The bite dropped with the current flow so we headed East to try some numbers I hadn't been to in a while, as the crew settled in for lunch. Tried to check out a barge but someone was already sitting on it so we trolled around a bit before moving on, ending up in 56 ft. The crew wanted to try some bottom bumping so we anchored up on one of my holes and sent some bait to the bottom. The bite still hadn't turned on but I managed to show the gang how it was done and put this nice red grouper in the box
I convinced them that I thought trolling was the order of the day so we put the lines out again. Not 2 minutes later Brett had a nice one taking LOTS of drag
After some serious pumping and winding he managed to keep him out of the rocks below and brought aboard a 34", 17.5lb grouper, Brett's largest ever. 
Well we had gotten a late start and it was almost 4:00 so we called it a day and enjoyed an absolutely beautiful ride back to AP. Back at the dock we had 8 quality grouper along with some ruby lips. One of thoses days where quality out-shined quantity. The stretch 30 color of the day was blackback/silver with blackback/green catching a few as well. The bait on the bottom was spanish sardines and squid. The seas were great and the temp was 59 in the AM and 63 in the PM. The water is still murky, you could see the fish about 20ft down but very cloudy.
Everything ran great and it was super day with family and friends.
Light winds and calm seas,
Capt. Jay
