Fishing with Ric!
Audi, myself, and my wife Connie opted to leave our boats on the trailer and go out fishing with Ric for a change. Kind of nice having someone else be the captain; it's been a long time since I've gone out and been able to just fish and not worry about everything else involved when you're the captain.
We scrounged around to make some bait in the morning, which was extremely slow. Finally, we found one rockpile that seemed to be holding lots of perfect size bait fish and we quickly loaded the bait tank with grunts, sargo, and small rock bass. I caught my first keeper of the day while we were making bait - a nice 5-8 lb. pinto on a sabiki rig! An unusual catch to be sure. And we caught and released an inordinate number of bigmouth bastards (yes, that's their actual name, also know as giant jawfish). There seemed to be a run of them. If you've never seen one, they are a small fish. Seems like 3/4 of their size is mouth and eyes. The other 1/4 is a tiny little slimy body.
We then headed out to some of Ric's favorite spots to try for grouper. On our first drift, Connie got slammed. Ric was quick to help her manage the fish and within a few minutes, we boated about a 40+ lb. gulf grouper, a beautiful fish and Connie's first grouper. We set up for another drift, and again, Connie gets nailed. However, this one didn't stick and was able to work free after just a minute or two. Audi and I were starting to feel like we needed fishing viagra or something.
We drifted several other reefs, but no takers. We then swtiched rigs and started fishing for corvina. We boated several nice size gulf corvina and a few gold-spotted bass here and there.
The air temp was still hot and the water hasn't cooled much yet - still pretty consistent at 88 degrees. All in all, a very fun trip! Many thanks to Ric and it kind of goes without saying that if you want to have a good time AND catch some fish, get Ric to take you out!
[attachment=0:1rqjtokr]Connie2.jpg[/attachment:1rqjtokr]
Audi, myself, and my wife Connie opted to leave our boats on the trailer and go out fishing with Ric for a change. Kind of nice having someone else be the captain; it's been a long time since I've gone out and been able to just fish and not worry about everything else involved when you're the captain.
We scrounged around to make some bait in the morning, which was extremely slow. Finally, we found one rockpile that seemed to be holding lots of perfect size bait fish and we quickly loaded the bait tank with grunts, sargo, and small rock bass. I caught my first keeper of the day while we were making bait - a nice 5-8 lb. pinto on a sabiki rig! An unusual catch to be sure. And we caught and released an inordinate number of bigmouth bastards (yes, that's their actual name, also know as giant jawfish). There seemed to be a run of them. If you've never seen one, they are a small fish. Seems like 3/4 of their size is mouth and eyes. The other 1/4 is a tiny little slimy body.
We then headed out to some of Ric's favorite spots to try for grouper. On our first drift, Connie got slammed. Ric was quick to help her manage the fish and within a few minutes, we boated about a 40+ lb. gulf grouper, a beautiful fish and Connie's first grouper. We set up for another drift, and again, Connie gets nailed. However, this one didn't stick and was able to work free after just a minute or two. Audi and I were starting to feel like we needed fishing viagra or something.
We drifted several other reefs, but no takers. We then swtiched rigs and started fishing for corvina. We boated several nice size gulf corvina and a few gold-spotted bass here and there.
The air temp was still hot and the water hasn't cooled much yet - still pretty consistent at 88 degrees. All in all, a very fun trip! Many thanks to Ric and it kind of goes without saying that if you want to have a good time AND catch some fish, get Ric to take you out!
[attachment=0:1rqjtokr]Connie2.jpg[/attachment:1rqjtokr]
