A spur of the moment trip turned out quite well. I had planned earlier in the week to fish saturday. As it got closer to the weekend, with a iffy forcast, my crew opted to wait for a better weekend. On the way I called MHNewell to see if there would be a spot on the renegade. He has planned on fishing with Scott as there was no charter booked. It turns out that Scott had a charter book late friday so Harris was looking for a ride. We quickly adjusted the plan to have Mamas Money 2 at the C-quarters ramp at 6:30 AM.
I hastily loaded more gear than I could possibly use when I got down friday night and hit the hay. Woke up without assistance from the clock at 4:30. Harris and I were on the water by 6:30 stealing bait outta Scotts traps by 7:30. :tooth:
The weather was pretty sporty. Lightning on shore at Carrabelle, lightning at the sea buoy....us in between...
We eased towards the storm, trying to make a decision. We listened to a few captains on shore opting to wait it out as the weather radar at C-quarters had a lot of red and black in the storms. After what seemed like forever, there was a sliver of not so black to the west. We battened down the spray curtains, dug in the tabs, and headed towards the "light spot" on the horizon. The weather had the gulf churning like a washing machine. It was the most confused sea I had ever navigated it. The waves(2-3 I'd guess) were coming from the SW, but every so often we'd get a BIG roller(4' or better) from the W-NW. It was really weird.
After we had ran a good while we were close to our desired fishing grounds for the day. I told Harris I preferred to drag a few bait for a while to see if it was going to lay. I wasn't to keen on anchoring in the mess we were in. Well, that lasted maybe 30 minutes, I hate trolling. We dropped on the couple of spots without much to show. It was really hard to anchor on the spots as the heading changed as we swayed on the hook.
The weather was trying to lay mid morning. As we traveled between spots I marked a good show on the bottom. We turned around and I set a drift over it. 1st drift we put 2 grouper in the box along with 1 snapper. Second drift resulted in Harris getting rocked and broken off, with 2 more snapper on the deck. It's time to anchor.
In the next hour or so the action was non stop, red grouper, red snapper, and believe it or not GAG GROUPER!
We had planned ahead for a change and that netted us 2 red grouper well over 15 pounds(if not 20) The snapper were not large but were decent keepers. All but one of the gags didn't need to be measured, they were quality fish! It sure was nice to have a 5 grouper limit instead of just a single grouper limit!!
The ride in with a healthy following sea was a little tiring but all in all it was a great day on the water. MMII and the ETEC performed admirably once more. To top it off I added another quality NEW number to my book!
Fyi, this is the smaller red. The fish have already been gutted.
I hastily loaded more gear than I could possibly use when I got down friday night and hit the hay. Woke up without assistance from the clock at 4:30. Harris and I were on the water by 6:30 stealing bait outta Scotts traps by 7:30. :tooth:
The weather was pretty sporty. Lightning on shore at Carrabelle, lightning at the sea buoy....us in between...
We eased towards the storm, trying to make a decision. We listened to a few captains on shore opting to wait it out as the weather radar at C-quarters had a lot of red and black in the storms. After what seemed like forever, there was a sliver of not so black to the west. We battened down the spray curtains, dug in the tabs, and headed towards the "light spot" on the horizon. The weather had the gulf churning like a washing machine. It was the most confused sea I had ever navigated it. The waves(2-3 I'd guess) were coming from the SW, but every so often we'd get a BIG roller(4' or better) from the W-NW. It was really weird.
After we had ran a good while we were close to our desired fishing grounds for the day. I told Harris I preferred to drag a few bait for a while to see if it was going to lay. I wasn't to keen on anchoring in the mess we were in. Well, that lasted maybe 30 minutes, I hate trolling. We dropped on the couple of spots without much to show. It was really hard to anchor on the spots as the heading changed as we swayed on the hook.
The weather was trying to lay mid morning. As we traveled between spots I marked a good show on the bottom. We turned around and I set a drift over it. 1st drift we put 2 grouper in the box along with 1 snapper. Second drift resulted in Harris getting rocked and broken off, with 2 more snapper on the deck. It's time to anchor.
In the next hour or so the action was non stop, red grouper, red snapper, and believe it or not GAG GROUPER!
We had planned ahead for a change and that netted us 2 red grouper well over 15 pounds(if not 20) The snapper were not large but were decent keepers. All but one of the gags didn't need to be measured, they were quality fish! It sure was nice to have a 5 grouper limit instead of just a single grouper limit!!
The ride in with a healthy following sea was a little tiring but all in all it was a great day on the water. MMII and the ETEC performed admirably once more. To top it off I added another quality NEW number to my book!
Fyi, this is the smaller red. The fish have already been gutted.