Memorial Day weekend

[SHOWBOAT]

Took Matt, his oldest son and another buddy out of shell point yesterday. Stayed in state waters, but did quite a bit of running with the great water conditions. First fish of the day came when a tiger shark slid past the boat. Buddy says “oh sh!t huge shark...and it has babies with it. I’m hooked up”. We laughed as his baby shark was a 30” cobia. I tied to toss a jig but was too late. We caught another short and a half dozen short groupers. Talked with one forum member in his pretty new Pathfinder and loaned another our onboard mechanic to help them get fired back back up. Good to see both of you guys. Headed in at 2:00 with one 40” cobia, 25” grouper and 17” flounder. Sounds like Monday we’ll be grilling fish and floating in the pool. Think i’m shore bound until Show-baby arrives.

[Srbenda]

Very nice, I am still cobia-less this year. Very jealous!

[silverking]

Nice outing Brian and congrats on the upcoming addition to the family. Better get some sleep while you can.

[geofish]

Sounds like a great day!

[SHOWBOAT]

Matt took the family corkin’ yesterday while I stayed with Meggie and cleaned the pool. They whacked the trout and saw some oyster catchers mate. Apparently only 1500 pair on the Atlantic seaboard.

[milto]

Thanks for lending us sausage fingers! I was just about to call Sea Tow for a jump as I ran my battery dead running the radio. We didn't end up bringing any meat home Saturday, but had a good time at the sand bar after you guys got us back up and running.

We did get to go out yesterday and ran out to the C tower. Our plan was to fill the box with mangrove snapper. There was actually so much bait (looked like spanish sardines) out there that when you threw your bait out, you had a bait ball swarming your bait. If you could make it past them, then we were able to get to them. We ended up bring home about 8 mangroves and 1 king that we caught trolling. I did hook another king with a whole dead bait but he cut me off right next to the boat. Still had fun and was back inshore by 1 before the wind picked up. Oh yea, forgot to mention, that those endangered ARS were also hard to keep off the bait as well. If it were season, we could have filled the 110 and 75 yeti we brought. I can't wait till we can keep 2 in 2 weeks!

[SHOWBOAT]

Glad to hear the weekend went well Jimmy.

Pool party was a success. Food and friends were fantastic!

Important to remember why we had the day off and were able to take advantage of the opportunities presented

[woopty]

Awesome!

[silverking]

I was towing the skiff home from Bradenton last week when I drove through tiny Cross City. Along Hwy 98/27, stretching for three blocks, were multiple rows of crosses and flags honoring local service members from all branches of service.

It was a very moving sight. I wished now I had pulled over to take a photograph. To see it in person was truly a humbling experience and a powerful reminder of what so many sacrificed for our freedoms.

[John21:6]

On Saturday morning, I fished for mangroves at O-Tower. We had no trouble seeing many of them swimming under the boat. Getting the mangroves to bite was another matter. My method was to feed sardine chunks on 1/0 hooks tied to light tackle and feed it into a chum slick. I hooked into two mangroves eventually but could not get them to the boat before the sharks got them.

Later, I tried bottom fishing in 40' off of Dog Island and we ended up on top of a school of white trout where I had caught grouper before. We put at least a dozen trout in the cooler, many of which were about 14" long. The water was so clear that we could see sharks chasing nearly every other fish we reeled in.