1/4 Moon Report - Must'a Been A Blood RED Moon!

[big bend gyrene]

Preacher brother living in Indiana made his way down this past week to fish and attend the FSU Maryland game. We originally had intended to fish Thursday and Friday, but with the winds a bit heavy on Thursday morning and the water mighty skinny in the afternoon we opted to take my daughter and my six year old nephew, James, to the Tallahassee nature museum. Had a great day walking the trails at the museum, but left me feeling all the more pressure to get us on some fish Friday.

Went out as the sun was rising. Fish out of Econfina 90% of the time, but with another low water afternoon I opted to launch at the lighthouse to at least avoid rocks when coming back in on skinny water. Ran out in the channel to about eight feet of water and instantly got the skunk off the boat with a... lizardfish. Good news was we had no problem finding bait so we quickly filled up the live well. Tried trolling some close-in grouper spots but they absolutely had lock-jaw. Ran over great structure with good presentation without a single hook-up. Decided to make a run to a new midshore number and ran on out.

Very first drop at the offshore spot, and before the bait hits the bottom my 6 year old nephew James has a cobia on! Thankfully, it was a bit short so he was able to help land it.

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Don't think he believed me when I first told him it was too small to keep! Great news for anyone still wanting to hunt cobes is that they still are here thick, appearing to be in full migration mode. As we pulled up James' short cobe, four more followed it up and two of those four were definite keepers. Later in the day, we had five more follow one of our baits to the boat. Wish I could say we landed more, but the one was the only one brought to the boat. Did lose about three or four monster bites throughout the day because we were too slow to the rods to make solid hook-ups.

Around noon as we were debating a move, my brother's rod doubled over and he made a clean hook-up. About 10 seconds into the fight I can tell it's not a grouper and tell him that it's got the freight-train pull of a good keeper cobe. As he brings it up, it looks about the size of a keeper cobe and I call it as such... but then, as it rises a few feet higher in the water column I correct myself... it's a BULL RED!

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My brother was absolutely ecstatic with the catch and we agreed that between James' cobia and the bull red, we could declare mission accomplished! For those who enjoy video, did capture a portion of the two big catches of the day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqDJlMUaOPc&hd=1[/video]

While the cobia and bull red brought us a good bit of excitement, the biggest whoops and hollers actually happened on the ride back in. Dolphin were THICK offshore and at one point decided to give us an escort. Captured some hilarious video of my preacher brother in "double rainbow!" mode, even letting slip a "Holy Shmoly!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkB3hjHt9Zc&hd=1[/video]

Got back to the lighthouse around sunset and had to bump the trailer against the backstop to be able to winch the boat up. Did so without too much trouble meaning we timed the return perfectly!

To the point of the original quarter moon info request, I can't say the bite was ever on fire but all things considered had a GREAT day making memories on the water with loved ones. JUST CAN'T BEAT THAT!
BBG

[MudDucker]

Sounds like a lot of fun!

[fishinfool]

Glad you were able to get the Pastor onto some fish. If your nephew did not believe his fish was too short, how did you explain that his father's fish was too big?

[FUTCHCAIRO]

GLAD YA AT LEAST CAUGHT SOMETHING.
PA
SEMPER FI

[big bend gyrene]

Had a blast. The day could not have been more gorgeous or the waters much more calm, despite a pretty cold morning start.

Actually tried to take Harmsway's advice and target some great seabass spots but was shocked not to catch any, instead hooking mainly grunts and snagging a few huge spot tailed pins. To have been so cold, I was pretty shocked that we didn't pull up the first seabass or gag, though I suspect at least one or two of our lost monster bottom hits were grouper. But think that's one of the very first trips this year I didn't catch seabass. Not that I would have picked them over the cobia and big ol' bull red.

[Sharkman]

Amazing fish! Wish I could have been there too. Great job! That red is bigger than all 11 my neighbor and I caught on Sunday put together. I am happy that they had a good time.

[Harmsway]

Looks like all your guests has a good hard pull. Sweet.

[Ranaman]

NIce Red John and great report s always, just wish I could post SOMETHING! crabby Joe

[Carlabear]

Great Video!