The wind has been blowing for most of the month but I did manage some quality time with my son JT. The plan was to head out about 25 miles to catch some snapper for dinner and maybe some bait for an up coming charter. To quote the great Hanibel Smith “I love it when a plan comes together”.
The day started out a little choppy but the seas were 2-3 so no big deal. As the day went on the weather just kept getting better and so did the fishing. We got about a half dozen nice mangs along with several short grouper and another reef species. Then we decided it was time to bring in some live bait to refill my pen at the dock. While catching blue runners on shrimp we got nailed by something a bit bigger than the 1 pounders we had been catching. After about a 15 minute fight I could see we had a pretty good sized king for a 5yr old fisherman. Being it was JT’s first king ever we kept the fish to eat and maybe get a mount of the head.
Don’t forget to vote for this photo. Thanks. http://www.bigfishtackle.com/cgi-bin/Wall_of_Fame/wall.cgi?do=detail&ID=2173
Man, I wish I had a way to scoop up live bait the day before a trip. I live 2 hours from the hill and pull my boat there each time. One day I might be able to live on the coast again and have a live bait box on my dock. [;)]
I still have a little over a month before the fishing gets back in gear up here. My final project is the wiring on my boat, which shouldn’t be too bad.
I’m thinking about getting up with tuben2 and constructing a “Saltwater Only” fishing contest.
I know we can get some sponsors for prizes and stuff. What if we made a Captains Contest as well as a members contest. It would be a great way for the Skippers and the members to be able to strut their stuff.
How would we do a captains contest though? They pull in alot of fish running charters, it would be a pain in the “you know what” for them to take a picture with each fish they caught. LOL, think about it.
Maybe for the charter captains, we could do something like a trip by trip deal. They take a picture of the total catch at the end of each trip. We could keep score based on total catch amount instead of size. Let the contest run from the opening of spring through fall. Just 3 or 4 months. We could have them post the date, where they were, what species and how many they caught of each. Of course, they’d have a picture to verify and the names of the anglers would be optional. Maybe our skippers would like to invite some of thier competition to join in on the fun. I’d like to hear what our charter captains have to say about this. Good idea Steve!
