Got to spend the day offshore on my actual birthday with my father, niece, nephew, and friends. The seas had been predicted to be flat calm the whole week. Then, I woke up at 4:30am to see that sailflow was predicting 15knts out of the NE. No!!! But, NOAA still said 5-10 knts out of the SE, and they had just updated it at 3:30 am. Buoy was still pretty nice though. So, we had to call an audible. Couldn’t go where I wanted so we picked something a bit closer just in case. Well, I don’t remember seeing a breeze more than 5-6 knts all day and the ocean was beautiful. Temperature was perfect.
Did 2 dives and then fished for a few hours. While wrestling with a very ferocious grouper, I somehow managed to get my fingers in his mouth. He chomped down with vigor! His needle like teeth went straight through my gloves. Caught me by suprise, and I think I might have screamed like a girl underwater. But, since half of my body was up under the ledge and I was 100’ down, I don’t think anyone heard it.
Ended up with 4 gags and limit of vermilion snapper. Also, threw in a lot of large triggers, a few BSB. The vermilion snappers were LARGE and we were catching them 2 at a time. We pretty much stopped fishing because we hit the limit and since it was 90% of our catch, we thought it was pointless to stay picking at them. Also, did a few test drops on a nice ledge on the way in. Dad and I doubled up on some 40lb donkeys. Just what I wanted to tangle with at the end of the day on a spinning rod. After a lot of tug-o-war, set them free. Caught and released a few red snappers as well.
