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BIRTHDAY GIRL
By, Reel Lucky LHP, 8/16/08

Headed out early Saturday morning and the fishing gods must have known it was Shel's birthday weekend. Little lumpy all the way out, took spray off the curtains and windshield the whole ride. The sitex was on fire with shows at our destination, a couple drifts to survey the situation and bam, Shel's on, after getting walked around for a bit, up comes a nice gag, her personal best. Happy B-day that would be the only keeper grouper for the trip. We caught a little of everything, a fun day for sure, highlights were a small african pompano, an even smaller rockhind grouper, red grouper, we did manage some nice mangos for the box. The lowlight was the rather large cobia I lost at the boat, lets just say don't try to gaff a big boy casually. (one hand , fish shakes head violently, twists gaff out of hand, bye bye gaff? nope, Shelbie yells "the gaff's still in, I think I can get it!" she leans over the transom and bloop, in the drink with angry cobe. God bless her, she came up with the gaff but no fish, line in the tabs, cut off, see ya, but a funny bit of drama) A bunch of laughs after that episode. Didn't get too many pics but here's the few we took. >>Forum Thread & More Photos

GUNSMOKE GROUPER
By, The FishWhisperer, 8/10/08

This is my first FS post. I'm an inshore guy but tempt fate every now and then and make a run.

The weather looked right again on Sunday to make another run to the "Grouper Garden" and get some meat. Called fellow forum member "Full Throttle" and asked if he wanted to go for a pounding. He was up to the task.

Started out of Pass a grille WNW at 5:30 am. The Waves were bigger than what was reported, supposed to 1-2 more like 3-5. But I knew from the weather pattern that it would get nicer later in the day, so we charged it 35 miles out to 110 ft of water.

Made a few stops to pick up some live pinners and grunts. Caught a nice blue runner that might come in handy later also.

Arrived at the garden and limited out with 3 12-15lb Red Grouper in the first half hour. The bottom was lit up every drop was a Red, a lot of just unders this time. We caught around 20 fish and kept our 3, so as soon as the cooler was full we didn't want to injure any more fish and decided to find some AJ's.

As we were getting ready to move Nick noticed some commotion off our Bow. I looked up to see a Sailfish dancing across the water! WOW! I've been in the gulf over 70 times always with my eyes glued to the horizon looking for something like this, but this was a first. He looked like he was hooked but there was no boat anywhere close. He was feeding on the flying fish I assume. Then nothing.

So we headed SE for about 20 miles around 10 am. The waves were a lot more bearable now and not a cloud in the sky. We ended up approx 5-10 miles due south of the Gunsmoke we were looking for South Jack hole. So I stopped when we were close to dial it into the gps. Just then the bottom finder lit up all the way up from 60 feet to 20 feet. Looks like AJ to me drop em down. No takers, then we got a tangle.

While untangling a school of Mahi decided to pay us a visit. Of coarse no one was ready. We just left the tangle grabbed our inshore rods and started throwing everything at them dead, live, artificial. No takers. Had a couple follow it in but nothing. Then they were gone. We then noticed a huge commotion of fish Bonita!

So we went over to them. first cast a nice 15-20 lb monster Bonita. We get it in and decided to get back to the plan for AJ's when it happened.

Way off in the distance I see a huge sliver thing flying out of the water. King? Wahoo? im thinking. We motor over to the general vicinity when a 6-7 foot Blue or White Marlin sky's out of the water and lands on its side like a whale just 50 feet in front of the boat. Unreal!! I've never even seen a bill fish in my life and 2 in one day. So we all go in full scramble mode to try and get this thing. Full Throttle puts on that nice blue runner on my Penn 6500 Sargus on a terramar heavy action 50lb PP 80 lb floro.(Yea Right) I don't think thats even close to the setup we needed for this fish. But it was the best we could do. So we slow troll around looking for a while and nothing.

Crazy though, unbelievable, I never thought just seeing a fish would make my day but it did. I also thought it was very unusual to se him at all never mind that close. Maybe following that huge school of bonita. 65 ft of water.

The first one was without a dought a sailfish with the big sail and the brown belly and torso. The second one by the Gunsmoke was much bigger, had no sail really and vibrant blue top with a silver white belly and torso. Now that I've been looking at pictures of marlin online I think it was a white. I didn't notice any striping. And it was on them Bonita. I don't know anything about these fish since I probably will never have enough money to fish for them but It's really neat to have a first hand experience like that in the gulf.

We made it back to Oneils around 3:30 -4pm. Thats why you go offshore I'm thinking to myself. A avid/addicted inshore fisherman for the last 15 years just found his new drug. The Gulf of Mexico baby. Man this is gonna get expensive. Staring with a new marlin rod. Just thought I'd share :nilly:. >>Forum Thread & More Photos

GREAT YAKKING
By, p911gt2, 7/31/08

I met up with Gary for an afternoon of fishing, we got a late start and were on the water around 12. The day was going pretty slowly, then the wind died down and a few minutes later the flat came to life. it didnt take long to locate the snookies, we could see a bunch of them but couldnt get them to eat, they noticed interest in topwaters but would swim up to the lures and turn away at the last second. I dug through the tackle box and pulled out a zara pup, after a few twitches it got whacked. I had a nice fish on but it came off all of the sudden. I reeled the zara pup back in to find that it was missing the rear hook. I casted it out there one more time and it got whacked

After a while they figured it out that something was not quite right and stopped bitting. We decided to move on and Gary found this guy on the way. we could clearly see a few more reds moving around and tailing, I made a few casts and hooked this guy. I guess he saw my kayak and made one last run for it. I couldnt believe it, I caught a snook in a school of reds, I wasnt too disappointed though even though my no redfish streak continued

Then finally after all the snook were depleted from the school of reds. we worked our way back to the launch and stopped at a few potholes on the way an picked up a few more fish. It was great to be back on the water after so many weeks of no fishing, and it coundnt have asked for better company or fishing. Here is the hot lure for the day, I think I got my moneys worth out of it. >>Forum Thread & More Photos

INSHORE PERMIT
By, aquaholik, 7/21/08

Well maybe someone is on them thick but I snagged one Monday and this nice 5lbers grab the pink teaser as it was rolling on the bottom this morning. I got there a little after 9am and the current was ripping. I could barely keep a 1/2 oz jig on the bottom. Got 4 more keeper Pompano to go along with it but time ran out at 11:30 before I could find pomp #5. >>Forum Thread & More Photos