The forecast looked favorable for the day, so me, 2 friends and friend's girlfriend left the marina around 7:30. Mike was out of live pins, so we had to setle for spanish sardines, LY's and squid and hope to catch some live bait. Got to hole #1 about 8:30 and started catching shorts. Played around with them for an hour or so and decided to go try another spot. On the way to hole #2 we were followed by more propoises than I have ever seen in my life......had to be 50 or 60 of them....everywhere. I shut the motor down so the woman aboard could see them up close.....they came within grabbing distance of the boat and just kept swimming around it. The water was very calm and very clear, so it made for an interseting spectacle to say the least. Us guys had had enough after 5 minutes, so off to #2 we went. Spent what seemed to be an eternity getting anchored up, but finally did and began catching fish and a huge sand shark. We boated 2 keeper gags and 1 snapper before deciding to go to #3. We got anchored up and started marking fish all over the bottom on nice structure. We caught 3 more keeper grouper, 3 nice red snapper and a nice triggerfish. Many short red grouper and a huge sea turtle decided to hang around up close for a while. Fifteen minutes or so before we left, the girlfriend got "hung" on the bottom and decided to just put her rod down and wait for us to finish. When we finally decided ot leave, we ended up going round and round to free up the line from the bottom. It finally came lose and up came a 26" gag! It was the biggest of the day....not to mention she also caught the biggest red snapper of the day....24"
The ride back in was a little more rough than what was forecast, so we ended up getting a little soaked on the way in although it actually felt good for a change. It was a really nice day on the water and the fish bit fairly well all day....just lots of shorts
TOTAL FOR THE DAY:
5 GROUPER (2 RED, 3 BLACK TO 26")
4 RED SNAPPER
1 TRIGGERFISH
1 HUGE SANDSHARK (4')
LOTS OF GRUNTS
Most of the keeper fish were caught on spanish sardines & live grunts. Not much action on the LY's and mostly grunts on the squid. Seems like live bait is still the trick. Water temp was 72-74 and very clear....about 30 ft. visibility. Hope to go back Saturday and try 'em again.....
