10-22-2002, 11:36 PM
The captain got a chance to fish yesterday. Jerry Gibbons invited me and my merry band of scallywags to check on some of his private spots, post tropical storms. (The scallywags were 1. Fishing Buddy, Gary Gates , 2. Work Buddy, Kevin Kirby, 3. Fishing Buddies other fishing buddy, Elton Chavis). We left Jerry's slip on Fowl River around sunup. We stopped at the mouth of the river and Elton and I loaded up the live well with 8-10" mullet, pogies, pinfish and small shad. (The dueling castnets) As soon as we made the turn to the south, it was painfully obvious we were in for a rough one. Jerry has a very well appointed 30' Grady White Marlin with twin 250 Yammy's for power. A curtain package kept us dry in the slop and spray. Gotta love that east wind.
Our first waypoint was one of his two year old tripods some 30 miles further offshore than what the light house is. We were making 16-18 knots into a nasty 3'-5' confussed sea. After and hour of this, we questioned our plan and sanity and punched up some closer waypoints. With 16 miles left to the first spot, we knocked 9 miles off with a five year old reef. With three left to that one, we keyed in on one just 2 miles away. We found the spot and dropped an assortment of live and fresh dead bait down. The live mullet and pinfish came back looking like they had been hit we a full load of #4 turkey shot. Dead giveaway that there were triggers down there. So I pulled out the double dropper loops and baited up with squid. Boy oh boy was I ever rewarded. I immediately boated two triggers in the 3-4# range. Everyone but Elton switched to the dropper loops and the triggerfish bonanza was on. It's been a long time since I seen that many BIG triggers on a feeding frenzy. As fast as it began, it cooled down and a couple more snapper rigs went over board in search of, well, snapper. I think we took three keepers from there and decided to soldier out a bit further, in keeping with the original plan. It seemed to get a little calmer as we went, but I think we just got more used to seas. At any rate, we were rapidly filling the massive fishbox with jumbo triggers and the snapper were getting ever more frequent.
Jerry is an Alabama Alumni and wanted to get home in time for the game. The pressure was on and we had finally made it to the last of the spots he wanted to investigate. I finally gave up my trigger rig and baited up with the backbone portion of a filleted out mullet. I'm hear to tell ya that grouper seem to like that stuff. And snapper too. I think I caught three snappers and one grouper on the same bait. We had lost count on snapper so I had to drag all the fish out of the box and do a recount. 16 snapper. Jerry gave us 20 minutes to finish the 5 man limit. Fortunatley it didn't take that long. More like three minutes. While I was counting fish, Work Buddy snagged my mullet bait sow rig and boated three snaps likkitysplit. Elton finished off the limit with a biggie on a fresh dead pogie and we were off.
The grady ran remarkably well in the following seas that ushered us home. We made 36-38 mph all the way to the light house. We had the game on the radio and Bama had already scored twice as we pulled into Jerry's slip. We off loaded our massive catch into two dockside coolers, iced 'em down and proceeded upstairs to watch the game. Jerry's bride gained four new best friends when she presented us with home made hot wings, cold corona beer, and this crab meat pizza dip that is to die for.
For one of the rougher days I fished this year, it was a wonderful one. A great catch, fanstatic food, and Bama putting a whooping on Ole Miss. Yep, it don't get much better than that.
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Our first waypoint was one of his two year old tripods some 30 miles further offshore than what the light house is. We were making 16-18 knots into a nasty 3'-5' confussed sea. After and hour of this, we questioned our plan and sanity and punched up some closer waypoints. With 16 miles left to the first spot, we knocked 9 miles off with a five year old reef. With three left to that one, we keyed in on one just 2 miles away. We found the spot and dropped an assortment of live and fresh dead bait down. The live mullet and pinfish came back looking like they had been hit we a full load of #4 turkey shot. Dead giveaway that there were triggers down there. So I pulled out the double dropper loops and baited up with squid. Boy oh boy was I ever rewarded. I immediately boated two triggers in the 3-4# range. Everyone but Elton switched to the dropper loops and the triggerfish bonanza was on. It's been a long time since I seen that many BIG triggers on a feeding frenzy. As fast as it began, it cooled down and a couple more snapper rigs went over board in search of, well, snapper. I think we took three keepers from there and decided to soldier out a bit further, in keeping with the original plan. It seemed to get a little calmer as we went, but I think we just got more used to seas. At any rate, we were rapidly filling the massive fishbox with jumbo triggers and the snapper were getting ever more frequent.
Jerry is an Alabama Alumni and wanted to get home in time for the game. The pressure was on and we had finally made it to the last of the spots he wanted to investigate. I finally gave up my trigger rig and baited up with the backbone portion of a filleted out mullet. I'm hear to tell ya that grouper seem to like that stuff. And snapper too. I think I caught three snappers and one grouper on the same bait. We had lost count on snapper so I had to drag all the fish out of the box and do a recount. 16 snapper. Jerry gave us 20 minutes to finish the 5 man limit. Fortunatley it didn't take that long. More like three minutes. While I was counting fish, Work Buddy snagged my mullet bait sow rig and boated three snaps likkitysplit. Elton finished off the limit with a biggie on a fresh dead pogie and we were off.
The grady ran remarkably well in the following seas that ushered us home. We made 36-38 mph all the way to the light house. We had the game on the radio and Bama had already scored twice as we pulled into Jerry's slip. We off loaded our massive catch into two dockside coolers, iced 'em down and proceeded upstairs to watch the game. Jerry's bride gained four new best friends when she presented us with home made hot wings, cold corona beer, and this crab meat pizza dip that is to die for.
For one of the rougher days I fished this year, it was a wonderful one. A great catch, fanstatic food, and Bama putting a whooping on Ole Miss. Yep, it don't get much better than that.
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