Scott sent this fish story about their family offshore adventure this weekend.

We broke the jetties at the crack of 9:30 am on Saturday. So we did not get a jump on it . . . but according to my wife and two girls it was plenty early for a fishing trip. They find no value in replacing weekend "sleep-in" time with an early morning on the water. This time they were right. We did great despite our late start. With Amy and the girls, 50 mullet, several bags of cut bait, 100 lbs of ice, 75 gallons of fuel, a few morsels of food and water, and a mess of rod sand tackle we went blasting into the gulf looking like a rag-tag bunch of fishermen. The water was a little choppier than expected but nothing that we could not handle. Waves were about 1 foot but were fairly close together. At about 10 miles it really started to smooth out. Our first stop was the rig we successfully fished last Saturday.
It is a simple four post large square rig sitting in 90 feet of water. It is about 18 miles out. We arrived about 10:30 am and found four other boats circling and drifting. We tried to ease into the rotation but found it more challenging than enjoyable. If you cannot relax a little while doing this then it is not worth it. Fishing for about 10 minutes there without so much as a bump is another sign that it is time to move on. We brought in the lines, fired up the engine and aimed for the next row of rigs on the horizon. This took us to 25 miles out and about 160 feet of water. This is a double rig; two large four post square rigs setting diagonal to each other 50 yards apart joined by an overhead set of pipes and a catwalk. This structure had several boats tied off and a couple more trolling around it. We found a good down current corner to tie onto. With rods rigged for bottom fishing we dropped live mullet and the catching commenced. The first fish landed was an 18" Mangrove snapper.
Meredith brought it to the boat with a big smile on her face. And so went the day. After 3 1/2 hours we had burned through all of the live bait and started to use some of the cut bait. We had seven red snapper (18" to 25") and six good-sized mangrove snapper(15" to 18").
I caught my personal best 25" snapper. That thing really pulled on the line. It is amazing how strong those fish are. You compare the pull of a 25" redfish with that of a 25" red snapper. There is no comparison. That snapper pulls as hard as a 40" red fish; maybe even harder. I have hooked larger/older snapper but they are smarter then these younger ones. The older ones grab the bait and then dart straight into the rig legs. When you pull up on the rod the line rubs
against barnacles on the rig leg and that is all she wrote. Fish and terminal tackle are gone. I read somewhere the other day that a guy uses 250# braid to combat that problem. I briefly researched a price on that. I would have to take out a loan to buy that stuff. I will have to stick to my lighter weight line. We were going to try trolling on the way back to the jetties but everyone was exhausted.
This offshore stuff will wear you out. Even in fairly smooth water you are constantly adjusting to the leaning boat. The waves were almost non-existent on the way in. We ran at 28 mph and were back at the dock in no time. When all was said and done it was a fantastic trip. This is why we bought at Kontiki and come down as much as we can. We are making family memories.