Scoutin normally gives me a hand on these trips, but he wasnt able to make it due to a Christmas party.
So we left his azz behind and went fishing. Of course, everyone that showed up was crying about hangovers, christmas parties, too many shots, etc… nonetheless, me, hakunematada, BrianT and Ontheverge pushed off around 745am after shoveling Advils and Alkaseltzer down our throats. Ran out to a secret bait hole in 100’ that was COVERED with bait, but they just werent in the mood. Ended up with barely 3 dozen… normally its a stringer on each drop. Needless to say we were worried about catching. Didnt matter…
Made it to the hole around 1030am and picked up a few fish including at least 8 endangered ARS, all of which made it back safely to the deep after being vented. One of them had to be 20lbs. Most of them were in the 12lb range, very nice indeed. Hakunematada had the day maker with a gag in the 20lb range. We didnt have a scale, but he was heavy. The bite got real strong later in the day about the time we ran out of live bait. I pulled out the Jig bag and opened up a can of whoopazz on the grouper. I have never seen anything like it… 4 in a row, one right after the other. Then Hakunematada rigged up a jig on his rod and he picked up a few. BrianT was slow to join the game and picked up an aj or two. Oh, and if you didnt get your jig back to the top ASAP, the AJ’s were on your rod. UNREAL indeed.
Hopefully we will have a weather window before Jan 1st for one more trip.
Total
8 Scamp
4 Gags
8 ARS (vented and released of coarse)
15 Aj’s (released)
531 endangered BSB (released)
Great Day on the water! Only think Bully left out was that the new Freeman 28 is a pretty awsome ride. Fast, fuel efficient, comfortable and dry ( normally you get one or the other, not all 4 ). Grouper for dinner tonight…
Do you have the yellow Freeman that I saw in Shem Creek last weekend?
The yellow boat is heading to Port St Joe, Florida this week. I was giving a seatrial on it last weekend.
The 28’ has a pair of Yamaha 300’s. Cruising home last night we were running 35mph getting 1.8mpg with 4 GROWN MEN, 350lbs ice/fish, 200lbs gear, 100gallons fuel.
Awesome report. I got to hop on with Bully at Folly for a test run and that boat is bad to tha bone. Ya’ll gonna be keeping it on trailer always or in water? those boats looks gigantic coming down the road on a trailer
Good lookin boat sir. Hard to belive its only 28 with a beem like that. I run Freedom Boat Club here if your ever short crew.) I’m not sayin, I’m just sayin.
Any man that doesn’t know how to catch a fish, shouldn’t disgrace a fish, by catching it.
Hey, nice job by the way . I was wondering can you catch the aj’s on the nearshore reefs this time of the year or are the gone out deep? Just wanted my boys to feel the fight of a couple of them . Thanks for your time .
