Robin's Reports

REAPING some HARVEST - Gal 6:9 con't.

As I wrote earlier, Jack decided it was time to switch up the game plan. Helen had never caught a snapper before in her life. Jack brought along his hand-held GPS to mark numbers as we went over bottom that looked good while trolling.

When trolling produced nothing, Jack looked up some spots near our location that could produce some snapper fun. The first spot was the location where Jack and Bill pulled up this monster -Warsaw Grouper

As soon as we put poles in the water and baits hit the bottom, we were getting action. It wasn't a 30 lb grouper, but it was something. Fun.

I was the first one hit. 17" Red Snapper. Legal size is 20". Released.

Then Helen's daughter gets the next one. She is pretty pleased with herself but disappointed we have to release it.

Helen between her fish.

This is Helen's first red snapper - ever!

It was pretty evident to Jack that no large groupers were home but only small red snappers. We moved 2 mi over to another snapper hole. In this particular area, there is a wide area of good bottom debris. I think some sort of ship has broken up over time and the debris has spread with each hurricane. After hurricane season, we'll go to a known wreck and it won't be exactly there any more.

We called the kids out and let them continue fighting fish at spot #2. Again, a double hook-up, which is common with snapper.

My son pulled in one but then retreated to the tower. He doesn't do well with smelling the diesel fumes.
Here's Mike and Helen's son who pulled up his snapper. This was part of a triple hook-up. I didn't catch a pic of his fish, but Helen did.
I had turned around to see these two fighting their fish. My youngest grunted and fought this thing all the way to the top. It gives me giggles to watch him work so hard.......

.... for this snapper.
Eventually, all the kids went back up the tower to watch Helen and I fish. I took my youngest's light action spinning rod. I've always heard fishermen say that the bigget fish will take the lightest line. It ended up being true. I had hot pole of for the next while. This snapper was 19.5". Just shy 1/2 " of the legal limit. I also caught another 18" right after this.

We also pulled up some black sea bass and 1 trigger during our time at this hole. It sure was a lot of fun inspite of having nothing in the cooler. The sea bass and trigger were keepers but not big enough to bother with the mess.

Stay tuned for the ride home.........