Fishing Report of 01-01-02 Courtesy of Capt. Randy Craft

[Tom Keels]

Fishing Report of 1/1/02

Apalachicola, St George Island to St. Marks, Florida -- Offshore

Happy New Year Everyone!

Hopefully, the coming offshore fishing year will be just as successful or even more so than 2001, if that is possible. We ran more charters, had more fun, caught more great fish, and made more great fishing friends this past year than ever before. We are very thankful to all our great clients for an absolutely banner year!

We ended this year with a bang after the holidays by running 4 very successful charters in this last week of the year. Our fishy friends cooperated to the max and Ive never seen them friskier.

On the 27th, Yuri Vizitei brought his sons, Ethan and Oliver along with Paul Ratcliffe and his sons Alex and Jon for a full day of fishing with me. It was a beautiful day! Cool temps, 1 to 2 seas and the grouper were absolutely overjoyed when we showed up with all that free food.

Yuri and his crew hail from up in Columbia, Missouri and this was the first trip offshore for them. His first question to me as he boarded DEBO TOO was what was the norm in so far as the fish they caught were concerned. I told him that they were most certainly welcome to keep all the fish they caught. And, that many of my clients just want a few fish to eat during their stay, with our doing catch and release for the most part of the day.

Yuri opted for the second game plan and we really had a BLAST!

By 10:30 that morning we had 6 beautiful bruiser Bubba Grouper all going over 23# each when Yuri decided they had all the fish they could eat for a month.

We had heavy, viscous strikes from bubbas all day long on every stop and ended a most excellent day releasing 23 more keepers to fight another day. A grinnin and tired crew posed for pictures with their beautiful catch back at the dock that afternoon and they cant wait to come back next year and do it again.

The 30th brought James Villa and his wife Renee, along with their friends Ed Sutton, Don Hallett and Al Hatton for their first offshore offshore fishing expedition. Now, all these folks are locals from Tallahassee, Havana and Crawfordivlle, Florida and they were all long on inshore/bay fishing experience, but had never picked on the big guys offshore. Man, did we have a great time!
And now, fishing in the briny has taken on a whole new meaning for them.

By 11:00 A/M we had our limit of 25 frisky grouper with many going to the Bubba category of up to 26#. We did catch and release for the remainder of the day releasing 11 more keepers. One was a sure nuff BUBBA at 30# or better who made sure we got well splashed when we released him.

Yesterday, New Years Eve brought two half day trips back to back to us in the persons of Ray Ashman and his son RJ and their friends Nick Lee and Ed Whelan all from the Lawrenceville, Georgia area to do the A/M portion of the day.

The P/M portion of the day was covered by Robert Jones and his buds, Danyelle LeBlanc, Cameron McClure, Don Hombroek, and Gary Bennett all from up in the Cumming and Lawrenceville, Georgia area.

Ray and his crew ended a good half day with their catch of 6 beautiful grouper to 22# and a nice mix of ruby lips and black sea bass. Some quick picture taking, boat and fish cleaning and we were ready for Robert and his crew.

We zipped back out to our fishy friends and found them waiting in ambush for the afternoon crew. Talk about fast and furious action! We really got into it!

We ended that beautiful afternoon with 16 super nice near Bubba grouper to 24# and a very tired but happy crew. It was a most exceptional catch for a half day trip and certainly the most productive half day of the entire season.

Back on the 27th Capt. Danny showed up that morning with something like the flu, but wanting to try to deck hand anyhow. I sent him home to recuperate and ran the charter alone. It was no big deal. I had always worked without a deck hand before I had DEBO TOO built.

My lady, Debo, has done an excellent job in Dannys place for the last three charters of this year. And, its really neat to be able to give your deck hand a big ole smooch at the end of a great day of fishing!

Take those kids fishing!
&
Catch Em Up!

Capt. Randy