Had 3 folks bail on me for various reasons. One guy did not show up. Had one person at the house at 7am and he had never been offshore other than a Thundarstar trip. Drug Pops out of bed… Headed out the Stono at 8am with a livewell full of spots, pinfish, croakers, and mullet.
Got to the bass hole at 9AMish… put some blackfish and pinkies in the box. Went to an area in 100’ feet I had marked and made a note of the last time I ran in from the ledge. Found a spot 1.5 miles short of the area I intended to go. It is a huge outcrop around 7’ high. Had bait on it. Mark it turn around…stop on it…drop on it…boom… one of the biggest Red Groupers I have seen in SC…big Sally that was 37" and weighed 28 lbs on the cheap scale…it was a big fish and was fat… Pops drops down with two little peices of squid and pulls up another nice red…though it was not as big…still was a solid 30" fish…
I drop a pinfish down…boom… fish makes a run like a gag…sure enough after a battle he comes up… gag 37" and change…
Grouper bite stops and we catch and release 20 pinkies and a few blackfish…maybe culled 3 pinkies…
end up going to the spot I had wanted to go to originally… looks great… triple shark bite greets us… work the area and find a lot of outcroppings and a small ledge… pulled 5 NARS off of a huge boulder looking thing…coulda been a wreck, but it was amongst hard bottom so I doubt it… we anchor up on it… and I get another gag…he rocks me…I open the bail and wait… see the line moving a few minutes later…drag his ass out and it is another big gag at 35"… get abused by another fish that did like those big snappers do…
Pops and the new guy are bringing up pinkies and two nice triggers on the chicken rigs…they also get some more throw back NARS and some beeliners that were keepers, but were later liberated… One of said beeliner was on the flat line…had some small kings on it until I saw something trashing the beeliner on the s
what kind of bottom machine do you have that you can mark good bottom while you are underway?? great catch…
It is a Garmin 320C that is 3 or 4 years old. It has more to do with the transducer placement and Cat hull. The TD stays below the water line in clean water… I can paint good bottom at 27 knots… find a ton of spots this way. Another advantage of a Cat…
Cracker, please fish on my boat again soon and school me in the ways of catching some bottom dwellers just like you have shown here…
My wife would really appreciate me bringing home some gags for her favorite dish–herb-crusted grouper.
And I mean really, really appreciate it…if you know what I mean…
“Never argue with an idiot…he will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.”
