Finally, under Sunday’s clear blue skies, we launched the boat at the Carrabelle River. From the ramp, we headed to the grass flats on the north side of Dog Island to catch our live bait. The water on the way to our bait spot was dirty brown and its temperature was 70 degrees. Pinfish and pigfish made it into the livewell without too much trouble, but the livewell pump stopped working. The circuit breaker kept tripping. Maybe it’s just a clog that’s easy to fix. (Please feel free to share any thoughts on what I need to do to diagnose and fix the problem.)
After loading the livewell, we headed to the Bryson Reef where some say that BIG amberjacks can be found. Bryson Reef sits in about 80’ about 23 miles south southeast of Dog Island. The water at the reef was a dark greenish brown from having been stirred up by the hurricanes, and the water temperature was 79 degrees.
One friend came prepared for the reef donkeys at Bryson with his sturdy fighting belt. Almost as soon as his bait hit the bottom, he locked his rod into the fighting belt as he began battling a huge fish. He would give a hard crank on the reel and pull the fish 3 feet closer to the boat, then the fish would make a run taking out 6 feet line. This back-and-forth went on for at least an entire minute. Then the loop on the loop knot that I used to attach the hook to his 80 lb. leader broke while the knot itself stayed intact. (It feels better when the leader fails than when the knot fails.)
Others on the boat had similar experiences. Soon, however, it seemed that we were battling a variety of tackle-destroying fish. Kingfish sliced though our leaders with their razor-sharp teeth and sharks destroyed our rigs as they hit whatever we hooked.
While the others were fishing, I was holding the camera rod hoping to collect some good footage of the bottom despite the murky conditions. I recorded a jack crevalle, amberjack, mangrove snapper, and a bull shark that rammed my camera, not once but twice.
Look at this shark! This is why I don’t swim in the ocean.
We quickly grew tired of replacing hooks, sinkers, leaders, and swivels at Bryson Reef. It was time to find red snapper. We headed deeper thinking that clear blue water would give us the best chance at quality fish. Around 85-90’, the water turned from greenish brown to a clear green. Around 95’, the water turned from green to clear blue. We stopped in about 100’.
According to the GoPro, which I don’t have time to review while fishing, there were a lot of red snapper on the spot, but we caught just one. No grouper showed up on the GoPro, but a few red grouper made it into the boat along with a lot of gag grouper. Had grouper been legal to keep, we would have been well on our way to catching our limit. As we fished our way back to Carrabelle, we continued to catch gag grouper after gag grouper. One more red snapper was caught in 80’.
At our last stop, which was well within state waters, we caught the biggest fish of the day—a huge gag grouper and a red snapper that was 31 inches long and weighed 14 lbs. The spot also yielded a bunch of other gag grouper and red grouper.
At the boat storage facility, as usual, my fishing buddies did a great job of helping me clean the boat and load the truck for the ride home. Another great day on the water with friends.
