From Scott(702)
August 12, 2009 – Offshore trip
As usual getting on the water by a decent time is nearly impossible. We (Amy, Meg, Meredith and me) left Conn Brown around 11:00 am. Our objectives were to maybe trade beer for some shrimp at one of the shrimp boats, catch several King and get a limit of Snapper. The waves were around 1’ and 5 seconds apart. It was a great day to have a small boat in the Gulf. On the way to our first stop we came upon a thick batch of birds circling and diving along with many visible fins swirling and splashing. This peaked our interest so we quietly motored into the mêlée. We found ourselves sitting on top of a massive school of unidentified fish. They were about 12” long and looked similar to mullet. There must have been a thousand of them. The fins we saw were half a dozen sharks in the 4’ to 6’ range. They were within 10’ of the boat. It is like having our own aquarium.
Our first official fishing stop was over what turned out to be some non-existent structure. No structure . . . no fish. There was a shrimp boat about a mile away so we left our lines on the bottom and trolled them toward the shrimper. Within 5 minutes one of our lines started to sing. Meg grabbed the rod and brought to the boat a 36” King. We trolled again and brought in an undersized King; threw him back. The shrimp boat produced nothing. We then headed further out and stopped behind one called the Captain Bligh. As we pulled up behind it a guy onboard hollered at us, “Trade beer for shrimp?” I quickly took him up on his offer. I offered him a 12 pack that I put on the boat for trading and he asked if we had anymore. I obliged and pulled my personal six cold beers out of the cooler. The trade was made . . . 18 beers for an approximate 40# sack of headed shrimp! I estimate market price for the shrimp to be around $7/lb times 40Lbs = $280 of shrimp for about $15 of beer. Good trade Indian. This fishing thing is great. We then trolled a little more and picked up a 30” King. They love the red and white Snapper Slapper tipped with a piece of cigar minnow. I had wanted to try some unmarked structure spots so we headed further to drop lines on them. We made five more stops unsuccessfully that took us 20 miles out. At that point I saw a rig another 5 miles out and we decided to go there try it and then head in. The rig proved to hold some nice sized snapper. There was no one at the rig so we tied on and commenced to catch 5 beautiful Snapper. The smallest was 20” and the largest was 24”. We had several things on the line that pulled like a freight train then broke the line in the rigs. That is exciting!! We lost 3 good lures to some very large fish. This is the price you pay for going after these monsters.
We came home with 5 large Snapper, 2 Kings and a 40# bag of shrimp. My numerous “pay your dues trips” are starting to pay off. We all had a great time and the freezer is full.
August 12, 2009 – Offshore trip
As usual getting on the water by a decent time is nearly impossible. We (Amy, Meg, Meredith and me) left Conn Brown around 11:00 am. Our objectives were to maybe trade beer for some shrimp at one of the shrimp boats, catch several King and get a limit of Snapper. The waves were around 1’ and 5 seconds apart. It was a great day to have a small boat in the Gulf. On the way to our first stop we came upon a thick batch of birds circling and diving along with many visible fins swirling and splashing. This peaked our interest so we quietly motored into the mêlée. We found ourselves sitting on top of a massive school of unidentified fish. They were about 12” long and looked similar to mullet. There must have been a thousand of them. The fins we saw were half a dozen sharks in the 4’ to 6’ range. They were within 10’ of the boat. It is like having our own aquarium.
Our first official fishing stop was over what turned out to be some non-existent structure. No structure . . . no fish. There was a shrimp boat about a mile away so we left our lines on the bottom and trolled them toward the shrimper. Within 5 minutes one of our lines started to sing. Meg grabbed the rod and brought to the boat a 36” King. We trolled again and brought in an undersized King; threw him back. The shrimp boat produced nothing. We then headed further out and stopped behind one called the Captain Bligh. As we pulled up behind it a guy onboard hollered at us, “Trade beer for shrimp?” I quickly took him up on his offer. I offered him a 12 pack that I put on the boat for trading and he asked if we had anymore. I obliged and pulled my personal six cold beers out of the cooler. The trade was made . . . 18 beers for an approximate 40# sack of headed shrimp! I estimate market price for the shrimp to be around $7/lb times 40Lbs = $280 of shrimp for about $15 of beer. Good trade Indian. This fishing thing is great. We then trolled a little more and picked up a 30” King. They love the red and white Snapper Slapper tipped with a piece of cigar minnow. I had wanted to try some unmarked structure spots so we headed further to drop lines on them. We made five more stops unsuccessfully that took us 20 miles out. At that point I saw a rig another 5 miles out and we decided to go there try it and then head in. The rig proved to hold some nice sized snapper. There was no one at the rig so we tied on and commenced to catch 5 beautiful Snapper. The smallest was 20” and the largest was 24”. We had several things on the line that pulled like a freight train then broke the line in the rigs. That is exciting!! We lost 3 good lures to some very large fish. This is the price you pay for going after these monsters.
We came home with 5 large Snapper, 2 Kings and a 40# bag of shrimp. My numerous “pay your dues trips” are starting to pay off. We all had a great time and the freezer is full.
posted by Kontiki at 10:37 AM
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