First Snapper Trip of 2011

[grouperfever]

I'm certainly glad I didn't pick the handle snapperfever because I would have to give it back! My brother, father and myself headed out of Och. Bay Saturday 6-4 for our first snapper trip of 2011. We have caught hundreds this spring like most of you and were hoping for a quick trip to beat the heat. It didn't happen. I was a bit worried the extreme temperatures my have pushed the fish to deeper water, but chose to work the areas in 60' where we had been successful this year. They had vacated. We boated one 23" snapper and that was it for them. That is the bad news, the good news is the grouper bite was as good as I have seen in the last four years. We worked several different spots usually not staying more than ten minutes after two or three keeper gags had to be thrown back. Tragic. In total we ended up releasing around 10-12 keeper gags up to 32". The red grouper were biting as well. We managed to catch our 3 man limit in short order and released another 4-5 keeper sized as well. Final tally, 6 red grouper to 26" and one red snapper at 23" and about 125 lbs of nice grouper thrown back. If you give the snapper a try in the near future I would suggest starting in about 90'. Good luck and catch them up. Pic below is pop with a nice gag.



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[JTR]

Photoshop..........

There are no Gag Grouper in the Gulf. Don't believe me, just ask the government.

[JTR]

Just Kidding.

Awesome catch!

I know your pain all to well.

Two weekends ago (5/28/11) we went out of Carrabelle and caught 8 keeper gags and about 10 keeper snapper (65' to 85').

All released to the commercial fishermen.

However we did keep 1 26" red grouper.

[qoutrage]

Nice! Thanks for the report.