Alligator Point 5/16/03

Post by **fish finder** » May 17th, 2003, 10:32 am

I took the day off from work to get offshore and see if the grouper were still hungry. The forecast was for 2ft or less but it was more like 2-3 ft and choppy with a few white caps pretty much all day. Hit the reef to load up on bait and couldn't seem to get as many pinfish as I like for all of the porgeys (grunts). Once we had the live well as full as we could get it, we headed southeast once again. First stop was in 65 ft, a hole I hadn't tried in a while. Marked lots of fish but couldn't get the grouper to bite. We caught acouple of short AJ's and 1 short red grouper. Decided to move on in to some of my spots that have been hot in the last month and again marked lots of fish but couldn't put any keepers in the boat.

This was how it went until after lunch. Finally, the bite kicked in about 1:00 and we started putting some nice grouper in the boat. This wasn't a charter so I got to do some fishing myself and pulled in two 30" grouper back to back, that will get you breathing hard. I didn't have the biggest of the day though as one of my buddies pulled one in that was 32" and weighed 16 lbs. Also caught 2 keeper red grouper.
Had to start in about 3:00 as I had to get back a little early but we ended the day with 12 keepers as well as releasing about 15 shorts. Almost all were caught between 1:00 and 3:00 pm. I guess the grouper fed all night on the full moon so they were not hungry until later.

The water temp is hovering around 80 degrees and the water clarity is moderate although the choopy conditions made it tough to tell. The bait was LIVE! We fished between 65 ft and 55 ft. I did have one problem, the up relay on my windlass went out so I actually had to pull the anchor myself on the last stop! The injustice of it all.

The anglers were Terry Joe Chapman, Frank Dement and his son-in-law Bill. A good time was had by all.

Patience and Persistance are the key,
Capt. Jay

Post by **Sea Fox** » May 17th, 2003, 3:18 pm

FF, sounds like fun. I plan to go next weekend even thoe its a holiday. Im jonesing pretty bad. The fact that the pinfish are hard to come by worries me alittle, but Ill go even if I have to fish with frozen stuff. Several years ago I was using a captaain out of alligator point by the name of Frank Barnes and as we would go out we would cross a narrow but obvious sand bar, and we would troll skimmers as we cross it and would almost always catch a king. I dont remember how far out we where, Does this spot ring a bell?. If so can you tell me where it is?. THANKS.

Post by **fish finder** » May 29th, 2003, 7:24 pm

Hey Sea Fox,
I'm sorry for not replying sooner, I guess I'll have to do better about checking back on my reports.
I'm not sure what sand bar you are refering to but it almost has to be either Dog Island Reef or the South Shoal, which runs from the tip of Alligator Point to the Southeast and is marked by buoy 26. Hope this helps you out.
Capt. Jay