Today my fishing buddies were Mason Williams, Donnie Poston and Buck Buchanan for a day of my best buddies and I fishing together which is something we haven't had a chance to do for a while. The plan for today was to go bottom fishing and put some of the nearly extinct Atlantic Red Snapper in the freezer before the fisheries managers at the NMFS implement yet another unsubstantiated amendment. It's amazing to me that the folks tasked with managing our fisheries can be so out of touch with the state of a fishery and that they can implement rules that will damage so many people who depend on the fishery and still not get the job done. Maybe some day the federal government will do the necessary research and appoint folks to the panel that will do the right thing and make good decisions on "current" science without prejudice due to affiliation.
Anyway enough of the soap box and back to the fishing. We procured our bait fairly easily off of Lorie Wilson park and took off to the north and somewhere well up north in the area where I do pretty much all of my bottom fishing we were able to catch seven pretty healthy specimens of the endangered species. We also had the first of the two cobes swim up to the boat and Donnie fed him a jig. The fish pretty much had its way with Donnie until he finally finished milking it and brought it along side. I was more than happy to sink the iron and add the fish to our collection. Mason managed to catch a 28" Gag to keep his wife Mary happy upon or return to the dock, Mary has a taste for grouper and between now and the end of the year we're going to have to stock our freezers due to another less than necessary decision by NMFS. Personally I hate frozen fish and will eat it only if I'm forced to.
Buck kept out a flat line most of the day and we added a few sharks to our tally which were released, a Barracuda which will be turned into other deep water species of bottom fish at some time in the near future.
We ran out of the livies that the snapper were chewing so we departed for Port Canaveral and enjoyed a smooth ride home. I spotted a free swimming cobe as we were tooling along at 30+ knots and quickly spun back around and we added him to our collection. A fish box box full of snapper, grouper and Cobia made for a great day and a some more great memories. I also particularly enjoyed having someone to help with the filleting of the fish and cleaning up the boat for a change.
Final tally for the day:
7 Red Snapper
1 28" Gag Grouper for Mary.
2 Cobia.
1 barracuda
1 Kingfish
4 Trophy Sea Bass (Ha,Ha)with a bunch released
A bunch of Atlantic Sharpnose released
