Scott sent this account of their offshore trip on Saturday.

We (Amy, Meg, Meredith, and I) left the condo around 8:40 am this pastSaturday and pulled the boat to Conn Brown.  Of course on our way we had to go to two different places to get a fishing license along with breakfast tacos and 100 lbs of ice.  It is not a good fishing trip until you have been delayed at least an hour with various errands.

 

Okay, so we finally make it to the ramp and get launched.  It was a beautiful morning.  Winds were light and the waves were low.  We broke the jetties about10:45 am.  We headed to our favorite state water snapper spot called the Big E.  That is E for Esai Luna.  Ray and I named it after him on a fishing trip last year when he landed all three of our limits.  He was a trooper. 

 

Back to today's trip, as we got close to the Big E we stopped at a small standpipe rig and dropped a live perch to see if anyone was at home.  As soon as it hit the bottom . . . tap, tap, tap, BAMM!  The rod doubled over and Meg started cranking.  She pulled up a nice 20" snapper.  This is big for state water.  We put it in the fish box and dropped down another live perch.  Within a few seconds of reaching the bottom . . . tap, tap, tap, BAMM.  Meg cranked up another one.  Things slowed after that so we continued on another half mile to the Big E rig.  Here we baited up two rods with live perch and Meg and Meredith both dropped lines down while I kept the boat in position up current of the rig.  Fishing was a little more challenging here with strong current, slower catching, and we had to cull through quite a few undersized snapper.  We also caught a few undersized Triggerfish and 2 keeper Strawberry Grouper.  After lots of dropping lines, fighting small snapper or pulling up empty hooks, we were all tired.  At this point we had 10 Snapper and 2 Grouper in the box and were ready to start heading home.

 

On our way in we stopped at a rig we call Sleepy Hollow.  We call it this because it is so terribly dilapidated.  It looks like something out of a horror movie.  Last time we stopped there I had a big Ling on and it spit the hook after a two minute fight.  As luck would have it while we dropped a few times looking for anything to bite, a school of Ling come up to our boat.  I quickly baited our pitch rod with a live perch. A precise toss put the live bait right in front of the school.  I could not see which fish took it but the line started going zipping.  I tightened the drag and started fighting the fish.  Within 20 seconds the fight was over.  The line went slack and I reeled in an empty hook.  It happened again at the same rig.  Frustrating but this is what keeps us coming back.

 

After that we called it a day.  We started our 1 hour run back to the jetties.  If your not already tired, that last run of the day will finish you off.  Between the afternoon sun and the pounding of the boat for an hour, we were all wiped out when we got to the ramp.  But it was a lot of fun.  Great memories for the whole family.

 

Unfortunately we did not get any good fish pics but I do have one of the Sleepy Hollow rig.

Scott did share a few of the snapper fillets with me and I took some to Alice Faye's today. Pretty good eating.