Today my fishing buddies were a great bunch of military guys from the area Jeff Bernand, Dan Kim, Rob Watkins, Mark Lorusso, and David "Hawkeye" Pierce. The original plan that Jeff had told me that they were interested in was to go to the other side for tuna and Mahi-Mahi. As much as I love to cross to the other side I felt as though a trip to the other side may be an exercise in futility. I advised Jeff that with the full moon, the recent persistent westerly winds, and a solunar calendar that was less than favorable that a trip to the other side was not the right thing to do. He told me that they weren't really interested in catching a bunch of Kingfish and asked what to expect if we were to pursue some bottom fish. I told him that although bottom fishing was mainly a fall and spring fishery I thought that I could probably get them into a few quality fish for the table.
I warned Jeff that we might have to work at it to get the job done and may have to fish deep water with some heavy weight. He said let's go for it and although we didn't catch a lot of small fish but we were able to get into some quality snapper in relatively shallow water for this time of year. We also had three or four gag grouper that fell just short of the 24" minimum size that had to be released.
Dan worked a float line most of the day and managed a Cobia too short to keep and I can't even begin to count the number of pesky Atlantic Sharpnose Sharks that we released both bottom fishing and on the float line.
After the bottom bite shut down around 1 PM we finished out our day aimlessly trolling blue water out to a depth of 400' without even a knockdown. This confirmed my decision not to go to the other side on a full moon with an ocean devoid of a decent weed line and a less than favorable solunar calendar.
Hind sight is almost always 20-20 and I should have passed on the trolling for Mahi. It would have made a lot more sense to finish the day fishing for Kingfish and the Cobia that have made a recent return. A smooth ride home and a box full of snapper made for a great day and a bunch of tasty fixins for dinner.
Final tally for the day:
8 Red Snapper to 28"
3 Gag Grouper released to grow up.
1 Cobia released to grow up.
A bunch of Atlantic Sharpnose released
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