07-26-2011
I headed out late in the afternoon to catch the evening grouper bite. We left out of Tarpon Springs Sponge Dock. I had my lap top hocked up to navigate from, just knowing that we were going to get our limits of mangrove snapper and red grouper. Gag grouper and red snapper are now closed so we were going for what we would be able to keep.
We passed the sea buoy around 4:30pm, and headed due west. Half way there my laptop with all our numbers on it crashes and we start to scramble to pull the trip together. We decide to head out to some flat bottom in 85' of water. After looking around for an hour, we find some fish holding on the hard bottom.
I am a die hard anchoring captain. I hate drifting. I will motor or power fish when the situation is right. That being said, red grouper tend to be spread out on flat bottom so anchoring is not always ideal. We decided to power/ drift fish, and it paid of well. The current was not running too strong and the wind was about 10 knots out of the south. We set up a slow drift and on the first pass we caught a few short red groupers and one keeper. We did it again and landed another red grouper. Within one and a half hours of finding this spot, we had our limit four man limit of red grouper.
Offshore fishing has been very good. There are more fish out there than I have seen in my lifetime. If you can get out there and get your red grouper and mangrove snapper—do it.
Captain Rick Reddick
www.captainrickreddick.com
info@captainrickreddick.com
813-787-0249
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