jsullivan03
Senior Member
Wednesday morning was spent on the pier. Spanish bite was on immediately and the first pier Cobia of the year hit the deck that day. Unfortunately, I had to leave at noon to get to Dothan AL for work. Didn't get back down to Pensacola until late Thursday evening.
Woke up Friday morning and after clearing the cobwebs out of the head
, My friends and I head for the pass to see if we could get offshore for the day. The seas were flat so we set a heading in the GPS for some structure about 15 miles out. When we got there we immediately got on Red Snapper.
Then I hooked up into something that felt a bit larger. It started screaming drag and all I could do was hold on. What felt like an hour later, but probably only about 15 minutes later I pull up this guy.
We continued to catch Snapper, Grouper, and Amber Jack off of the bridge rubble throughout the day. I had several big hookups that either broke off or the 8-10ft long sharks we saw all day long broke them off for me. Some interesting by catches of the day was an extraordinarily large Sea Robin, and I snagged a Sea Cucumber
. We were so busy catching fish, I forgot to get pictures of those. Spent most of the day out at sea having a blast until my conscience got the better of me. I figured I had better get back and check on the girlfriend that had been up sick half the night before that I had left behind in bed
. She felt better and wasn't mad at me for going fishing all day and having to leave her behind...on our anniversary none the less .
The next day, we decide to do a bit of inshore fishing. The full moon and high tides made for a muddy bay. We caught several Croakers and White Trout but got bored with that bite quickly. The bay started to chop up a bit, and we wondered if we could get out of the pass and fish the beach area. We made the run and found it to be passable and got on the beach and the action started immediately. Large schools of Redfish all over the beach. It reminded me of pictures and video of the Tarpon fishing in Boca. Boats galore surrounding the schools and everyone casting and cursing each other when they got crossed lines or cut off. My first cast resulted in a hook up. After having a guy untangle his line from mine, and fighting the fish away from a boats prop, I ended up with this.
The action continued like this for the rest of the day. Several fish landed, several with pulled or straightened hooks. Here are a few more pics from the day.
The last fish of the day was brought in by the girlfriend. She had already lost one big one because of straightened hooks on a lighter rod than I was using. She has to have the reel set up for right hand retrieve because as she says she is "left hand stupid." So I had set my rod up right handed and had been trying to hook into one for her. All the boats had cleared out and we had lost the school. It is almost time to head home and all of a sudden out of nowhere a dark cloud shows up in the surf in front of us. I slung the jig out to it and no sooner had it hit the water the rod bowed over. I handed the rod to her and the fight was on. She cursed this fish up and down...(so did I). I knew it was big. After a long fight the fish wore down and I was able to get my hand under its gill (this fish wasn't fitting in the net). She had landed the biggest Red of the day. The scale showed it at just over 26lbs.
We called it a day and headed back for the canal all of us with big grins on our faces. We had accomplished what we set out to do. Sunday morning came along and we regretfully packed up and got ready to head for home. Something about leaving such a beautiful setting just kills me. Until next trip to the salt...(7 more weeks)
-J
Woke up Friday morning and after clearing the cobwebs out of the head
, My friends and I head for the pass to see if we could get offshore for the day. The seas were flat so we set a heading in the GPS for some structure about 15 miles out. When we got there we immediately got on Red Snapper.
Then I hooked up into something that felt a bit larger. It started screaming drag and all I could do was hold on. What felt like an hour later, but probably only about 15 minutes later I pull up this guy.
We continued to catch Snapper, Grouper, and Amber Jack off of the bridge rubble throughout the day. I had several big hookups that either broke off or the 8-10ft long sharks we saw all day long broke them off for me. Some interesting by catches of the day was an extraordinarily large Sea Robin, and I snagged a Sea Cucumber
. We were so busy catching fish, I forgot to get pictures of those. Spent most of the day out at sea having a blast until my conscience got the better of me. I figured I had better get back and check on the girlfriend that had been up sick half the night before that I had left behind in bed. She felt better and wasn't mad at me for going fishing all day and having to leave her behind...on our anniversary none the less .The next day, we decide to do a bit of inshore fishing. The full moon and high tides made for a muddy bay. We caught several Croakers and White Trout but got bored with that bite quickly. The bay started to chop up a bit, and we wondered if we could get out of the pass and fish the beach area. We made the run and found it to be passable and got on the beach and the action started immediately. Large schools of Redfish all over the beach. It reminded me of pictures and video of the Tarpon fishing in Boca. Boats galore surrounding the schools and everyone casting and cursing each other when they got crossed lines or cut off. My first cast resulted in a hook up. After having a guy untangle his line from mine, and fighting the fish away from a boats prop, I ended up with this.
The action continued like this for the rest of the day. Several fish landed, several with pulled or straightened hooks. Here are a few more pics from the day.
The last fish of the day was brought in by the girlfriend. She had already lost one big one because of straightened hooks on a lighter rod than I was using. She has to have the reel set up for right hand retrieve because as she says she is "left hand stupid."
So I had set my rod up right handed and had been trying to hook into one for her. All the boats had cleared out and we had lost the school. It is almost time to head home and all of a sudden out of nowhere a dark cloud shows up in the surf in front of us. I slung the jig out to it and no sooner had it hit the water the rod bowed over. I handed the rod to her and the fight was on. She cursed this fish up and down...(so did I). I knew it was big. After a long fight the fish wore down and I was able to get my hand under its gill (this fish wasn't fitting in the net). She had landed the biggest Red of the day. The scale showed it at just over 26lbs.
We called it a day and headed back for the canal all of us with big grins on our faces. We had accomplished what we set out to do. Sunday morning came along and we regretfully packed up and got ready to head for home. Something about leaving such a beautiful setting just kills me. Until next trip to the salt...(7 more weeks
)-J
