It would have paid to know the current regs since our lawsticker on the boat still said 24" for gags. Threw back a couple of 22half-23's.
Better safe than sorry though. You can tell I don't make it to grouper water often in our 18' Pathfinder.
Spotted some bait getting beat up closer to 24 and headed over since we were getting short on pins. Got a few Threadfins and headed back to the hole. Nothing going by the time we got anchored back up.
Started to head toward the barge and got into some bait again. After watching the sabiki get followed back decided to pitch one back into the school on a free line with steel. Sure enough it shot off quick. Some big spanish and maybe some kings.
Had one of those happenings that you hear about but don't ever see happen. One of the guys sat down, rod in lab with freeline out, and decided to check his tackle box for something. Sure enough something made short work of getting his rod off his lap and over the gunnel.
I was on the bow with a sabiki and tried to pitch it at it, but it was too late. I felt bad for my buddy
, but luckily it was his own rig and it was one of the funniest things I'd seen in a long time 
I just happened to have Ambassador 5000 that I had tried to get use to that was almost exactly like his rig. I gave it to him when we got back to the house. I never could get use to pitching a baitcaster.
The funniest part was when he asked if we had marked it on the GPS try and jig around for it. I told him that last we saw it was headed south.
It was like a torpedo.Left the memory card for the camera at the computer, so no pics. Ended up with one nice spanish to the boat, about 24", but there were some bigger ones out there. In all it was a good day with one lasting story for us all.
