Spent most of yesterday out on the boat with my dad and son, about 7 miles west of Stump Pass down in Englewood. First spot we hit, as soon as the bait hit bottom the grouper was on! Unfortunately, they were all about 12-14 inches and had to be released. The wind was bucking the tide a bit, so it was a little rough. Had a hard time anchoring over the spot and staying put, aggravating as hell. We ended up drifting over our marker, and had to lift the motors to untangle the line. Got the marker loose, then the starboard motor wouldn't go back down! We pushed and pried and did all we could from the back end of a boat rocking around in 3 foot seas, and finally had to just leave it up and use one motor. After being out for about 3 hours we had caught about 40 or 50 grouper, but didn't have anything in the box. So on one motor we idled over about 1/4 mile to another spot. Once again, all the little red grouper you could handle! Then my son caught a 12" Key West grunt. About 10 minutes later I caught one about 10". Then my dad hooked something nice! He got up near the surface and we saw a bright flash of reddish-orange, and grabbed the net! He had a 20" hogfish, one of the finest fish you'll ever eat! Well, that made the trip worthwhile. About the time he landed his hogfish, something jumped on my line, and it was acting the same way his had acted. I have never caught a hogfish, and where were fishing is where my dad, my son, my mom (God rest her soul), my stepmom, and several others have caught them. So I was anticipating getting my first.
Then the line broke. SUMBITCH! :censored :crap: :death
All them little grouper had frayed the end of the leader, and I hadn't paid attention to it. :censored :censored :censored
Dad ended up catching two more keeper grunts and a lane snapper, and my son caught another nice grunt. It was hot and we were tired, knew it was gonna take a while to motor in on one motor, so around 2:30 we headed in. Since were only able to run just above trolling speed, we decided to slow it down a tad more and put out two diving lures. About 15 minutes into trolling, my son's rod bent hard and he reeled but didn't feel anything. He kept reeling, and a few feet from the boat we saw a blue flash, the fish turned and ran, and then he felt something! It was a nice Spanish mackerel, about 20" to the fork, the first he'd ever caught, I think. We put the lines back out, but didn't get anything else.
No one had a camera when we got back to the dock. My stepmom's cell phone has a decent camera, so she took a couple of pics with it, now I'm waiting for her to figure out how to send me the pictures! If she gets it figured out I'll post some.
My son and I had fresh mackerel last night. Almost made the sunburn and tired back worth it! Might be his last fishing trip for a while. He goes to basic training on the 20th. Gonna miss having him around.
What was the depth you were in? That last trip out that I did we found the keepers in 65 to 70 foot. We had gone deeper but only found shorts.
We were in about 45'. We were going to go on out to around 60', but then the motor got stuck. My dad is about fed up with the boat he has now. He's had it about 16 years, gotten good use out of it, but now it seems like every trip or two there's a problem. His neighbor has a 29' Pro-Line with twin Yams (200's, I think) that he will be selling because they have to move to north Florida and can't take it with them. Dad's gonna wait until they are about to leave to make him "an offer he can't refuse"! :rockon
Still sounds like a good time to me. My buddie has been cleaning up on keepers out there. I think hes going out just a little further then you.
Still sounds like a good time to me. My buddie has been cleaning up on keepers out there. I think hes going out just a little further then you.
Yeah, we were disappointed we couldn't get out further. It was rougher than we expected, so we stopped at the first place to wait for the tide change, hoping it would calm down a bit, which it did. But by then we were SOL with the motor. We still had a pretty good time. Felt like one of those TV shows where all they do is "catch and release". Sure wasn't any shortage on the action! I bet we caught 150 red grouper. Or maybe the same 10 fifteen times each!
