Me, my nephew, Richard, and "Grouper Dave" snuck out in Richards 25' Cat before the front rolled in and it turned out to be a wise move. Were met with no wind and 3-4' rollers spaced out further than I've ever seen before which made the ride smooooth. Stopped at one place and tried for flounder and got 2 real quick along with some silver porgies. Action kinda slow so we headed out to a deep water ridge and immediately caught some small vermillion, a 18 lb red grouper and a 10 lb red snapper (was hard to throw that one back)! Still kind of slow so we tried another ledge and the action was non stop the rest of the day. Caught lane snapper, mangrove snapper, scamp, and gag grouper. We did run into problems we did not expect at this hole. While bringing up fish, all of a sudden you ended up fighting to "keep hold" of your rod as a big damn jewfish (sorry, I don't acknowledge political correctness)would come up and grab the hooked fish. He cost us six fish and once, straighted my hook. Pretty hilarious though to all of a sudden see someone cranking up then get taken down to the gunnel. Also, a shark was down there and cut off some fish. If you could get it through the assault down below, then a 4ft cuda showed up and left us with 4 or 5 "heads" - the S.O.B. Where he came from is a mystery but it got to the point that if someone actually got the fish 20' from the surface, the others would stir up the water with their rods to spook the cuda away. It worked to an extent as we had a double hookup and the cuda got my snapper and then went for GrouperDave's 15 lb grouper but my nephew actually was able to jab the cuda an drive it off just a few feet from leaving Dave with a head and gills! Unbelievable. Time flew by and as we were readying the boat for the ride home, my nephew latched on to something HUGE. We all gave him the razz as he was fighting to bring this fish up and we were all splashing the water to keep the s.o.b. away from this one and it worked. Just as he said he couldn't reel anymore (22 yr old wussy)the big boy came into view and he did manage to get it up so I could gaff it. A nice 26 lb gag - what a way to close the day. By then the wind had pick up a bit and the rollers layed down but there was a 2-3ft chop that the cat just rode through like it wasn't even there. Fish had empty stomachs and we got a ton of meat off the cheeks and the throats of the bigger fish. Fish hit ly's, squid and spanish sardines.
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"THROW THE MARKER, THROW THE MARKER!!!!!!"
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Offshore7 on 2002-01-03 3:22 pm ]</font>
12/29/01 report
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BigbaitBigfish
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- Joined: December 12th, 2001, 8:00 pm
- Location: Tallahassee, FL