Off Dog Island - October 10
Posted: October 11th, 2007, 6:40 am
Buddy Al and I dropped the Oh Hell, Mechele! in at Lanark about 7:45, and tip toed out of the shallows as the tide was pretty low. We decided to skip live bait and headed out to a number in about 70' of water. Wind was NNE, about 5 k, and seas a light chop. We could run at 25 mph, so pretty nice.
Dropped the buoy and anchored up. Not much doing, but this spot is surrounded by lots of hard bottom so we set up a couple of drifts and got bites right away. Marked that spot, and anchored. Catching was steady: lots of more than legal red grouper (we kept one about 15 lbs and one about 10lbs), caught about 6 more legal red grouper that we threw back, boated a 28" gag, two 25" gags, a scamp, a 20 lb king, jolthead porgy, and huge white grunts. Also caught numerous undersized reds and a couple of undersized gags, plus two large remora.
At days end, a 8' hammer came up under the boat, then sounded. Soon my bait was whammed and I had that bad boy on, like it or not. About 15 minutes into the fight he was rising to the boat, and then the leader finally broke. Perfect, since I would have just cut him off, anyway.
Final tally of kept fish: two big red grouper, three gags, one scamp, one king mack, one jolthead porgy, 6 huge grunts, and a bonita on the way in. Bait was squid, Ly's, and tinker mackerel. Al wanted to keep the bonita because his friend can "cook anything" and make it taste good. Good luck.
Absolutely beautiful day, although it got pretty hot around noon. Very calm on the way in.
Regards,
EJ
Dropped the buoy and anchored up. Not much doing, but this spot is surrounded by lots of hard bottom so we set up a couple of drifts and got bites right away. Marked that spot, and anchored. Catching was steady: lots of more than legal red grouper (we kept one about 15 lbs and one about 10lbs), caught about 6 more legal red grouper that we threw back, boated a 28" gag, two 25" gags, a scamp, a 20 lb king, jolthead porgy, and huge white grunts. Also caught numerous undersized reds and a couple of undersized gags, plus two large remora.
At days end, a 8' hammer came up under the boat, then sounded. Soon my bait was whammed and I had that bad boy on, like it or not. About 15 minutes into the fight he was rising to the boat, and then the leader finally broke. Perfect, since I would have just cut him off, anyway.
Final tally of kept fish: two big red grouper, three gags, one scamp, one king mack, one jolthead porgy, 6 huge grunts, and a bonita on the way in. Bait was squid, Ly's, and tinker mackerel. Al wanted to keep the bonita because his friend can "cook anything" and make it taste good. Good luck.
Absolutely beautiful day, although it got pretty hot around noon. Very calm on the way in.
Regards,
EJ
.....makes great chum.. 