teambigbobberz
11-08-2007, 11:07 AM
You know those kinda days that you talk about often and for a long time? Well we had one of those days!
Max Franklin, one of my co-workers here at Dell Marine called me early Monday and said..."Rick Ryal said Tuesday is our window this week, whatcha think?" :dunno: Well, you don't have to ask me twice! I put together a crew in no time flat...Sleeping Beauty, (the fisherman formerly known as Chris or KingfishCrazy), was going to meet me at 6:00am and Tommy, (Tosho), and Max were going to meet us at B&M at about 7:00. Well, "Sleeping Beauty" called me a few minutes after I had given up on him and left the shop. He had just woke up...alarm clock issues! Lucky for him he caught me at the gas station and since he's a pretty nice fella, I waited for him. I only had to wait a few minutes and off we went to Mayport.
Armed with 10 pounds of fish-sicles & 5 pounds of squid we were off! We headed out towards PM and tried a couple of drifts...FAST drifts! :eek: Not much happening there so we headed to a nice little patch of live bottom to see what was happening there. After a few drifts, a few short snaps, and a few sea bass, we determined there were fish there, but we were going over them so fast we couldn't really get their attention...we needed to anchor. It took us a few tries to get the anchor to hold, seems the anchor line was a little short. Yeah yeah yeah, I know...I need to get a bigger anchor and more line! I won't even tell you how we finally got it to hold!
I got the sabiki rod out to see if there was any bait down there and put a few dozen cigar minnows and a couple handfuls of grunts in the livewell. Tommy hooked a pretty good size grunt on his bottom rig and sent him back down to see if there were any grouper hanging around and BAM! There he was! Chris grabbed the rod and brought him in.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/TeamBigBobberz/DSCF4855.jpg
Sleeping Beauty sent a little cigar down and got the first keeper snapper of the day...I'm not sure why I didn't get a picture of that one, but he's in the group photo at the end!
Then Tommy Rock hooked into something HUGE that had no intention at all whatsoever of coming anywhere NEAR the boat. The fish eventually rocked up, (hence the new name). In anticipation of bringing fishzilla to the boat, I wanted pictures of the fight...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/TeamBigBobberz/DSCF4859.jpg
Turns out this is exactly what it looks like to have your (_!_) handed to you! Will that be paper or plastic Tommy Rock? :rofl:
The bite was kinda slowing down there when we got buzzed by this motley crew...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/TeamBigBobberz/DSCF4863.jpg
Jake and Wade stopped by to see how we were doing then they headed out to try to find the motherload. Little did they, or anyone else for that matter, know they had just left it!
I wanted to drift a spot about 100 yards from where we were that I was pretty sure was holding some eater snapper, maybe even a grouper or two. We pulled anchor and went to check it out. The first drift produced some short snaps so we dropped anchor. This is where the fun REALLY began!!! :wiggle:
We all got situated, baited up with a variety of baits and sent 'em down. Max had chosen a fish-sicle, cut the tail off and down he went. Just what the grouper ordered!!!!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/TeamBigBobberz/DSCF4865.jpg
Then Sleeping Beauty sent a little grunt down to do some recon and what a fine job he did!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/TeamBigBobberz/DSCF4867.jpg
...almost enough to lose the new nickname, but...nah! ;)Notice the well rested eyes!!
Within minutes of that I got one on and at the same time Sleeping Beauty's line went off again. Unfortunately, no picture of that one...Tommy Rock had the camera set wrong :sad: Maybe he got it in his camera...it's much easier to operate - even a caveman could do it!
Even though he couldn't figure out how to take a picture...Tommy Rock could dang sure catch a grouper...he put this one in the box for dinner.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/TeamBigBobberz/DSCF4869.jpg
All this while we'd had a barracuda lurking around the boat, he ate half of one of Chris's grouper on the way in and was just hanging around waiting. I was standing there holding my rod when it went down...hard. As the fish started to get closer to the boat, Tommy and Chris were giving me a play by play on what the cuda was doing...going to my fish. I was cranking that sucker as fast as I could when I felt it snatch my fish!!! :crying: As I stood there saying a few choice words, up came the head of a NICE snapper, only to be nailed by a shark right there at the boat!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/TeamBigBobberz/DSCF4870.jpg
Not too long after that, Max got what he'd been hoping for ALLLL day...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/TeamBigBobberz/DSCF4871.jpg
SUPER SNAPPER!!!
And another grouper...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/TeamBigBobberz/DSCF4873.jpg
All of this in just over an hour!!! WOW! We packed it up and headed for the rocks at 46mph...the water was awesome!
Final tally - 7 grouper, 2 snapper, 1 bee liner, 10 or 12 sea bass and a GREAT time!
We were in about 65 feet of water, live bottom, 71 degree water temp
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/TeamBigBobberz/DSCF4880.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/TeamBigBobberz/DSCF4883.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/TeamBigBobberz/DSCF4882.jpg
Tommy Rock, Sleeping Beauty, you know I'm just messing with you, I love having you on the boat...thanks for coming! Max, GREAT idea! Let's do it again! :iconbeer:
Max Franklin, one of my co-workers here at Dell Marine called me early Monday and said..."Rick Ryal said Tuesday is our window this week, whatcha think?" :dunno: Well, you don't have to ask me twice! I put together a crew in no time flat...Sleeping Beauty, (the fisherman formerly known as Chris or KingfishCrazy), was going to meet me at 6:00am and Tommy, (Tosho), and Max were going to meet us at B&M at about 7:00. Well, "Sleeping Beauty" called me a few minutes after I had given up on him and left the shop. He had just woke up...alarm clock issues! Lucky for him he caught me at the gas station and since he's a pretty nice fella, I waited for him. I only had to wait a few minutes and off we went to Mayport.
Armed with 10 pounds of fish-sicles & 5 pounds of squid we were off! We headed out towards PM and tried a couple of drifts...FAST drifts! :eek: Not much happening there so we headed to a nice little patch of live bottom to see what was happening there. After a few drifts, a few short snaps, and a few sea bass, we determined there were fish there, but we were going over them so fast we couldn't really get their attention...we needed to anchor. It took us a few tries to get the anchor to hold, seems the anchor line was a little short. Yeah yeah yeah, I know...I need to get a bigger anchor and more line! I won't even tell you how we finally got it to hold!
I got the sabiki rod out to see if there was any bait down there and put a few dozen cigar minnows and a couple handfuls of grunts in the livewell. Tommy hooked a pretty good size grunt on his bottom rig and sent him back down to see if there were any grouper hanging around and BAM! There he was! Chris grabbed the rod and brought him in.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/TeamBigBobberz/DSCF4855.jpg
Sleeping Beauty sent a little cigar down and got the first keeper snapper of the day...I'm not sure why I didn't get a picture of that one, but he's in the group photo at the end!
Then Tommy Rock hooked into something HUGE that had no intention at all whatsoever of coming anywhere NEAR the boat. The fish eventually rocked up, (hence the new name). In anticipation of bringing fishzilla to the boat, I wanted pictures of the fight...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/TeamBigBobberz/DSCF4859.jpg
Turns out this is exactly what it looks like to have your (_!_) handed to you! Will that be paper or plastic Tommy Rock? :rofl:
The bite was kinda slowing down there when we got buzzed by this motley crew...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/TeamBigBobberz/DSCF4863.jpg
Jake and Wade stopped by to see how we were doing then they headed out to try to find the motherload. Little did they, or anyone else for that matter, know they had just left it!
I wanted to drift a spot about 100 yards from where we were that I was pretty sure was holding some eater snapper, maybe even a grouper or two. We pulled anchor and went to check it out. The first drift produced some short snaps so we dropped anchor. This is where the fun REALLY began!!! :wiggle:
We all got situated, baited up with a variety of baits and sent 'em down. Max had chosen a fish-sicle, cut the tail off and down he went. Just what the grouper ordered!!!!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/TeamBigBobberz/DSCF4865.jpg
Then Sleeping Beauty sent a little grunt down to do some recon and what a fine job he did!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/TeamBigBobberz/DSCF4867.jpg
...almost enough to lose the new nickname, but...nah! ;)Notice the well rested eyes!!
Within minutes of that I got one on and at the same time Sleeping Beauty's line went off again. Unfortunately, no picture of that one...Tommy Rock had the camera set wrong :sad: Maybe he got it in his camera...it's much easier to operate - even a caveman could do it!
Even though he couldn't figure out how to take a picture...Tommy Rock could dang sure catch a grouper...he put this one in the box for dinner.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/TeamBigBobberz/DSCF4869.jpg
All this while we'd had a barracuda lurking around the boat, he ate half of one of Chris's grouper on the way in and was just hanging around waiting. I was standing there holding my rod when it went down...hard. As the fish started to get closer to the boat, Tommy and Chris were giving me a play by play on what the cuda was doing...going to my fish. I was cranking that sucker as fast as I could when I felt it snatch my fish!!! :crying: As I stood there saying a few choice words, up came the head of a NICE snapper, only to be nailed by a shark right there at the boat!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/TeamBigBobberz/DSCF4870.jpg
Not too long after that, Max got what he'd been hoping for ALLLL day...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/TeamBigBobberz/DSCF4871.jpg
SUPER SNAPPER!!!
And another grouper...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/TeamBigBobberz/DSCF4873.jpg
All of this in just over an hour!!! WOW! We packed it up and headed for the rocks at 46mph...the water was awesome!
Final tally - 7 grouper, 2 snapper, 1 bee liner, 10 or 12 sea bass and a GREAT time!
We were in about 65 feet of water, live bottom, 71 degree water temp
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/TeamBigBobberz/DSCF4880.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/TeamBigBobberz/DSCF4883.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/TeamBigBobberz/DSCF4882.jpg
Tommy Rock, Sleeping Beauty, you know I'm just messing with you, I love having you on the boat...thanks for coming! Max, GREAT idea! Let's do it again! :iconbeer: