Plan was to go over Thursday night with my friend John and "scout" the snappers out for our wives and daughters to come over and fish Sat/Sun.
We took my boat out Friday morning to flat seas and calm winds and severe clear conditions. Ran out at 35mph enjoying the sunshine and calm seas. Could have went to the Empire Mica given the seas but hit several of the reefs out around 100' and caught our limit pretty quickly all on frozen LYs. My buddy lost a really big snapper at the boat so we decided to leave the rest of the snappers for the girls and ran to some other numbers to troll. Boated a good size king on a spoon and a couple of Spanish as well. Thought we had it nailed for the girls...
We hit the water Saturday morning after checking all the weather reports/buoy data with reports and predictions of 1' or less and winds 5-10. We got beat to death and soaked going out but put the tabs down and toughed it out only to find that we could barely stand up when we got to the 100' reefs. My buddy swears the seas were 3' - 4' foot with bigger waves tossed in for good measure, I think they were more like 2' - 3', but even the offshore boats didn't seem to want to anchor. The girls attempted to fish but being in bay boats, no gunwales to lean against, seas were getting worse and we couldn't set up a decent drift and I wasn't dropping the anchor. My iPilot crapped out probably from the beating it took going out so no spot lock and we were bouncing around so bad I doubt it would have stayed in the water. We decided to run back in closer to see what we could do. Ended up hitting some spots in 70' or so and managed to catch some decent snappers. Bite was slow and we pretty much had to drift/hold position with the OBs while the girls fished. The girls were tired and sore, my buddy launched his 18 footer completely out of the water jumping a wave and his wife slammed her back pretty good so it was back to the cottage and muscle relaxers for her.
Tried again Sunday, North wind still blowing, so we stayed in at 70' but the bite was really SLOW. Ended up with only 3 snappers between us so we headed to the hill and packed up. Stopped in Apalach at Boss Oyster and had some shrimp and grits and enjoyed the nice breeze on the deck, stopped again at Crums for ice cream bars which has become a family tradition ever since I first took my daughters to the "mini-mall" in Panacea
We stayed at the new Port Inn cottages in PSJ which were really nice with the girls with us. They had dedicated boat parking, hose for wash downs and a pretty decent breakfast included.
Not sure what the deal was with the seas as the offshore buoy south of Cape San Blas was only showing 10 - 12 mph winds and 1' seas. The frequency was 3 seconds so I'm thinking that was the deal. That or maybe all the hot air in DC came through the area.
Once again my wife eyed the 36' Yellowfin with triple OBs in the canal and I reminded her it would not work too well in Keaton or Steinhatchee nor could I afford the gas much less the boat! I think we are going to stick to flats fishing for a while! No pictures it was just too dang rough to dig the camera out.
