The "BOSS" wanted to go try his luck on some grouper, so despite the ever changing forecast, the last of which called for 3-5ft, we headed out around 7:30 Sat. morning. Along with the owner, Scott Dungey were his 7 year old son, Logan, his brother Danny and Danny's girlfriend Ashley. Rounding the point, the seas looked great, but the wind was out of the NW, so I knew this was deceiving. By the time we got out to 50ft, it was a choppy 4 ft, but not too bad. Started trolling but only caught one short grouper after 15 minutes. We anchored up over the spot, marking lots of fish and proceeded to catch, AND RELEASE

, about 35 short grouper. The kids were having a blast, but after an hour or so, with no fish in the box, I decided to move on. Trolled to the next stop, hooking a nice kingfish, but I made a rare gaffing error and lost him at the boat.

After regaining my composure, I anchored over the mark and finally had some decent grouper action. Scott caught 3 nice gags all between 26 and 28 inches. The bite was now sporadic but the fish were bigger. Danny hooked what he thought was another short grouper but I was happy to see that it was a 20 inch flounder.

We moved out a little deeper trying to find some clear water, to 65ft. The water was still dirty, but trolled to the hole anyway. Danny hooked another nice king, about 25 lbs, I estimate because we lost that one to the running gear.

Kingfish 2, Cuda"B" 0! We marked alot of fish, so we anchored up and had a nice double hook up, with Danny bringing a 17 lb gag to the boat and Ashley putting a 14 lb gag in the box.
Logan also caught his first keeper of the day, after fishing steady all day.
We called it a day at 3:00 and headed back to the Point, with great seas, warm temps and happy crew.
The seas were sloppy at first but calmed nicely. The bait was a little bit of everything; Ly's, chub mackerel, spanish sardines, and squid. The bait that produced the bigger fish was whole spanish tipped with a piece of squid. The water temp was 68 and it was very dirty all the way out to 65 ft. Possibly why the grouper were not hitting the stretch 30's. All that rain here and north of us that is flooding the lakes has made it's way into the Gulf! Anyway, it was a great day, with lots of catching, plenty of variety, and some big grouper in the box.

Only downside was that I lost 2 stretch 30's along with the 2 kings that got away, but that is why it's called fishing.
Capt. Jay