Mid-week fishing trip with Dad

My dad called Tuesday night and wanted to know if I was free to go fishing Wednesday. Well, I thought about it for about 1/2 second, and asked what time to be at his dock!

We went out about 10 miles from Stump Pass, and it was like glass out there. Too still, actually. I dropped a small pinfish (and I do mean small, less than an inch long!) over hoping to entice a snapper, and BAM! something hit it hard! Pulled in an 18" red grouper - too small, and out of season past 9 miles out anyway! But what a start, we just knew it would be a good day. An hour later, and we had one 10.5" mangrove snapper in the box! We had caught 3 or 4 triggerfish, all about 10-12", and a couple of small gags and red grouper.

We started getting a small breeze, and moved about 300 yards to another spot and drifted acoss it a couple of times. We caught 2 nice mangroves about 14 inches on two successive drifts, in almost the same spot, so we tried to anchor and fish that sspot a while. The wind and tide were just against each other enough to make anchoring at the right angle tough, and it took three tries to finally settle where we wanted. We fished there about an hour and a half, and caught two more mangrove snapper and a porgie for the box, and played catch and release with under-size grouper. I caught two scamps, both just under 16", and they were tough to throw back. Grouper is good, but scamp are just another notch better!

Finally we headed back and hit some some spots about 7 miles out. We caught our first Key West grunts ther, and a few more mangroves. Finally the box didn't look so empty.

We ended up with 7 decent snapper, 10 Key West grunts, some other kind of grunt, and a porgie. It was a beautiful day out on the water, and we did have some fun with the catch-and-release grouper. Didn't bother with any pics, as nothing was that great. Maybe next time!