Cap’t Dick’s 25′ Grady White just got back from the shop, so it was time for a little shakedown cruise. Sunday morning, Joe, Pat, and I gathered at Dick’s, geared up and headed west. The Gulf was perfect – just enough breeze to keep the heat down, but not enough to kick up waves. It stayed flat the entire day- and what an AWESOME day it was!

We hit the usual bait spots, loading up on pinfish, cigar minnows and  Spanish sardines. We set out for some structure in the 100′ range that usually holds amberjack. When we arrived around noon, another boat was anchored right on the spot, hauling up fish. We motored around until the bottom finder lit up, then dropped pinfish. The amberjack were there, and they were hungry. We quickly boated our limit of these hard-fighting fish.

Next on the agenda were grouper and snapper. We headed for a nearby ledge, dropped a marker, and made a quick drift. We were quickly hammered by some big gags, so we set the anchor and proceeded to haul in red grouper, gags, and mangrove snapper. The action was steady until the tide slacked. We picked up a few more stragglers, then headed to a break in 80′ for the final stop of the day.

With two days till the full moon, the snapper were thick and hungry. We bagged some nice, tasty mangos, and added a couple more grouper to the box. The bottom was thick with fish. We threw back some big Key West grunts, triggerfish and even a yellowtail snapper, although the American red snapper remained elusive.

We arrived back at Dick’s shortly after sunset and started filleting. The final tally was:

4 Amberjack
3 Gag Grouper
1 Scamp Grouper
2 Red Grouper
11 Mangrove Snapper

Not bad for a shakedown cruise! Thanks again to Dick, Pat and Joe for an incredible fishing trip.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 16th, 2008 at 9:34 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.