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LABOR DAY
By, Familyfisher, 9/1/08

What a good time! We arrived in C-belle about 10 p.m. Thursday night after eating at The Landing in Panacea. Not bad.. My friend Joel and I did the all-you-can-eat shrimp and made them ban us from the place in the future. The girls had some combo platters and the food was quite passable. Got up Friday morning and started moving the girls about and by the time we launched the boat and got some squid, it was 12:30. Carrabelle River is the color of coca cola. I've never seen it like that in the 7 years I have been going down there. The walkway at the C-Quarters fuel dock is under water by 4 or 5 inches and the river is still rising. I didn't figure we'd do much since we've had so much fresh water. I must've gone to a different location than EJ though cause about 3 miles off SGI, the water turned colors and it was beautiful from there on out. CALM doesn't even describe Friday. I ran OC at 4300 RPM and was busting around 30 mph all the way out to 50 feet to a great number for grunts. Joel just wanted something to stretch the string that is edible. I took care of that. On the way out, we ran across the most amazing concentration of jellyfish I've ever seen on either coast. MILLIONS. I am not exaggerating either. From about 30 feet on out to 50 feet, if you had fallen out of the boat, you'd have died from jellyfish stings! This pic is at one point while we were still and fishing. They were thicker than this closer inshore. >>Forum Thread & More Photos

LIGHTS OUT
By, jhults11, 8/17/08

Met up with my buddy jeremy and we headed to my buddy, Mike Chavez'(Team bad company) house in tally saturday morning to wait for the storms to pass. About 3 they passed and we headed to AGP for an overnight trip we had planned for a while. It was me, jeremy, mike, his dad, and glen on chavez' 32' bertrem and we were ready. Got to the reef at about 5 and caught pinfish for 2 hours and left with about 60. We fished one spot on the way out for 5 minutes catching a legal Red Grouper in about 70ft.

We got to the wreck we were gonna anchor up on in 100 ft right before dark. After anchored we all dropped pinfish to the bottom. Right away I hooked a nice legal cobia but 1/2 way through the fight the hook pulled.. ..dam it right... NOPE... Jeremy backed me up with his own and after a 5 minute fight mike got a good gaff shot on the 35lber right in the lip. High fives all around and back to fishing. It got slow for a bit and soon as the moon came out, mike dropped in the chum bag with the glow sticks to get the mangos to come up.. boy did they. Between 9 and midnight we managed 11 studs to 22". Those things are a blast on a trout rod and reel rigged with 40lb power pro. We lost a couple of nice fish to sharks... I think !!

At about midnight something went bad. The lights on the boat were dimming and we knew something was up. Mikes dad went to crank the boat to charge the batteries back up and nothing. What the f@#$!!! 45 miles out at 1 am with no power... great feeling. At least the seas were glass. We went all night not knowing wether we could get the radio working in the am to hail someone. Its hard trying to sleep not knowing what the next day would hold. We awoke to flat seas and overcast. We saw permit wrolling all over the surface but couldnt get a dam 1 to bite. We finally saw a boat headed near us at about 10. Thank god he came over even though we had to bribe the captain with $100.. what a stupid piece if ... he gave us a jump. By this time it was 11 am and all of our pinfish were dead due to no live well overnight, we missed the am bight and we only had like 2 hrs to fish b4 heading in. Oh well at least we were safe and didnt have to stay out there another night till the search parties were rallied to come find us.

We hit 2 good spots on the way in still boating 7 legal Red grouper to 12 pounds and 3 Gags to 26" and a nice 18" Scamp all on dead bait with no tide movement... in the heat of the day! Headed in on flat calm seas to mikes house back at the point and were back by 3. Cleaned fish for one hour and were back in tally by 6. What and adevenure and glad we made it in ok. Caught a lot of fish but I think it would have been a knock out punch if we could have caught that am bight with all of our live pinfish. Oh well... at least we are ok.

Great time with good friends despite the mishap. Thanks to my buddy chavez(TBC) and his dad and there boat, we had a blast and caught a lot of fish.

Final tally:
11 Mangrove snappa to 22"
8 Red Grouper to 27"
3 Gag Grouper to 26"
1 Scamp at 18"
1 Lane snappa at 14"
2 Veramillian (beeliner) at 13"
1 Cobia at 35 lbs
1 Jack crevall at 10 lbs
2 undersized amberjack to 26"
1 Barracuda to 3 ft

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ST MARKS SCALLOPS
By, grouper sandwich, 8/9/08

My father and oldest daughter Britany met up with Dan Richardson and family at the St. Marks Fort Ramp for a day of scalloping fun. It was a fairly cool and uneventful beginning. The new ramp facility is nice, VERY nice. I doubt I'll be putting in at the Lighthouse anymore. They've even upgraded the parking area. There are still plenty of ramp bozo's, however. But, we made it in the water without incident.

Once on the flats it didn't take long to locate the scallops. They were average in size but easy to find. We limited out in about 45 minutes and shucked for about 3 hours. Dang I miss having Julie on the boat, she's the shucking queen! But, the three of us made it through the ordeal. Rolled back up to the ramp about 3:00 and were out of the water in no time and headed north. Got home, washed the boat and showered just in time for for my lovely bride to pull a rib roast out of the oven for dinner. Two or three cold beers later and I closed the book on a wonderful day spent with my father and daughter. Can't wait to go again! >>Forum Thread & More Photos

CARABELLE COBIA
By, mike722, 7/29/08

Tuesday two of us decided to slog through the breezy seas and hit a fairly deep wreck for AJs and such. We hit a 60 ft grouper number on the way, but the keepers were not home. We ended up staying on the wreck most of the day, since the AJs, Jack Crevalle, and Cobia keep us busy and entertained. We caught our "limit" of 2 AJs, a couple of big Mangrove Snapper, and brought a total of 4 Cobia to the boat, a 30 inch one that hit a jig, a keeper of about 36 inches that broke off at the boat, a real short 25 incher, and a real nice 50 pounder that was finally subdued and gaffed. We finally got tired of the action, and decided to leave the grouper holes for another day... >>Forum Thread & More Photos