Late Thanksgiving Report Lanark/C-belle 2009

[Ranaman]

First I have to apologize for the late report and lack of pictures we seemed to have misplaced the camera and had some other speed bumps this week.

Spent the Thanksgiving holiday fishing with Celeste and I can’t remember having a less stressful day, other dealing with some wind and above forecasted seas we were happily catching fish from the first troll to the last drop of the day. Started shallow with some stretch 25’s and picked up a short gag grouper to start the day. Gave the spot for a few minute with nothing else so headed to our 50 ft spot figuring with the wind direction and waves that would be the deepest we would want to go unless the day got better.

Found the fish right away and I don’t think we had lines on for more than a few moments quandary was it wasn’t gag grouper hitting our stretch 30’s but king mackerel! After boating a dozen or more nice kings we left the area with a few in the box for smoked kingfish dip and back toward the shallower waters and calmer seas behind the island. BTW our king ratio on the plugs was about 90% on the purple and 10% on everything else so next time you troll for kings try the purple stretch 30’s!!

After the exciting trolling, but lack of grouper we decided to drop on one of our small live bottom spots to see if we could coax one up on some stinky baits we had a mix of LY a squid and cigars going over the side and shortly found some nice grunts home and then some short grouper we drifted the area since my anchor repair was postponed Wednesday evening due to my transducer bracket repair taking precedence! Amazing what you can do with a drill and dremmel

So after drifting a little off the spot fish changed to Black sea bass BIG (BSB) so we took a few for the box and re drifted the area with same results Grunts short gags and Red grouper and then BIG BSB so we just made it fun and took home what turned out to be a mess of nice fish! Not to mention our kings already on ice I had plenty to clean the next morning.

Our Black Friday had been plans to go fish the river with a forum member and his son were postponed due to the boy having a fever so Celeste and I cleaned fish and then went looking for fuel water separators for the motors. My port engines RPM would never match the starboards at throttle so I talked to some forum brothers and they suggested I start there. As we searched for parts we got a call that we could pick up the kids from their week with Jacksonville Dad in Tallahassee @ 4 PM Since we had driven to Apalachicola looking for parts and for lunch we asked them to meet us on the west side of town at the West Marine and we were able to kill two birds with one stone. Got the kids and headed back to Lanark for a Saturday offshore trip with the family! To be cont….

[DeanMac]

Great report, I enjoyed the read.

[Ranaman]

Thank sDean sorry we couldn't get you and Bryce out!!

...Saturday morning I got the boat ready again for a day offshore with the 3 kids. It was pretty cool loading the boat up, but by the time the kids were ready to go I was warmed up from running to and from the boat! We decided the tide was a little low for the Lanark ramp and headed out of the Carrabelle River around 9:30; not the early morning start I wanted but with 2 teenagers and a 11 y old I guess that’s pretty good! We headed south and made it to the cut in good time. The port motor was still running a little off but not as bad as Thursday it seems that a couple cans of Seafoam helped, but I could still see it needed some attention. I decided to try and troll a spot south of the pass and when I got to the secret area of course there were already two boats fishing it! We trolled a little off the spot around the other boat careful to keep our distance and not interfere with their up and down action or lack of action it seemed, I didn’t see anything from either boat; my trolling didn’t pay off either. So I picked up the stretches and headed to some deeper numbers where I knew I could put the kids on some fish.

We quickly boated a short grouper and I thought the grouper bite would start, but as usual on this spot the Red snapper quickly turned on and that was all we caught for the next hour or so. We did manage a few 19 in gags after trying some LARGE bait. I had trolled up a lizard fish and kept it for dropping down which resulted in a bigger grouper however still no keepers! I think the kids had fun and it was interesting to see that even they could tell that they had snapper on by the typical snapper fight after battling so many of them throughout the day. We managed a couple good sized grunts to go in the box and decided to make a long run to some deeper water and headed SE. The wind had started to lessen and running was no problem, kids took turns driving the boat and laying in the cabin listening to music.

We fished two or three spots with more snapper and less baits to show for our efforts, so I put us on a path toward some trolling numbers and put the stretches out again. I think it was just Celeste and Sterling and I fishing while the younger two were napping to music In the cabin when Celeste’s had a hit on the red/white which we thought at first was just a sea bass or grass, turned out to be a perfectly lip hooked 23 in gag that came right to the surface and then the boat! We finally had a keeper and it went immediately to the box! First keeper Gag in our new boat!! That got everyone’s attentions, but after trolling the next hour or so without another hit we lost interest and headed to one more spot to bait fish before heading home! By this time the seas were almost flat and running in after our unproductive last stop was like glass, Josh the youngest decided to keep me company above deck as the afternoon sun lowered and the temps beginning to cool, the wife and two oldest rested in the warm cabin below.
Josh and I captained the boat into the river happy to have a long day of fishing behind us and at least one nice grouper for the table.

All and all I can honestly say my wife and three kids boated over 50 KEEPER American red snapper and it became a shame to continually have to throw fish after fish back. Which by the way I wouldn’t have done if allowed to keep only a few! I would have kept them and moved on to trolling for grouper or looking for something/where else and not continued to possibly injure or lose them to porpoise or kings and cuda.

I didn’t have those problems where I was fishing seeing all of them swim safety toward the bottom after release, but have witnessed and heard many stories of fish never getting the chance because we had to return them to predators in waiting.

Honestly, allowing us to harvest one or two of those fish could in no way hurt the population as much as releasing numbers of them to predators. Recreational anglers are not the problem, Governments that do NOT understand fisheries ARE!

[cmccord]

Honestly, allowing us to harvest one or two of those fish could in no way hurt the population as much as releasing numbers of them to predators. Recreational anglers are not the problem, Governments that do NOT understand fisheries ARE!

Agreed!

Great Report! Sounds like you and your family are having a wonderful time with your boat. May you continue to have such wonderful endeavors.

[Ranaman]

Thanks Guys, the boat has been great unfortunately the weather hasn't always been the best but the company always is!

[qoutrage]

Nice write up Joe. Better luck next time.

[Ranaman]

Just lucky to be out there with my Bride on T-day and kids that Sat Quinn, Thanks!