day number 2---actually 2 days later. target, again, is a different spot 60+ miles out. first couple casts brought some small, non-keeper red groupers, and a few large gag-groupers (out of season). then i nailed this beast. probably 40lbs?? its an amberjack. unfortunately, out of season at this point.
our buddy mikey also nailed this large red snapper at the same time. doing my best impression of a troll face while he flexes like a jackass
then it was his turn to nail an amberjack. they don't call these 'reef donkeys' for no reason. they're a bitch to pull in. eventually we had to switch spots, as we were only pulling these bad boys up. we ended up leaving another spot that was riddled with barracudas--yeah, they look cool, but they kill anything you bring to the surface--you end up pulling a fishhead out of the water.
our second-to-last spot was a gold mine. we nailed red grouper after red grouper. we had 3 over 18lbs, and one was over 20lbs. we got 14 red groupers, 5 red snappers, 2 trigger fish, and several mangrove and lane snappers. keep in mind when you look at the picture below, that red groupers (the middle two rows) have to be over 20" to keep. we had an insane amount of fish
took us nearly 2 hours to fillet the fish. we probably had/have over 60lbs of fillets. crazy. you can see this pic was at 8pm, before we started filleting. both days we went out at 6:15am, and came back around 8pm. depending on how rough the seas are, it might be a 2 hour ride each way, just to get out to the spots. we froze all the fish and split it up
our buddy mikey also nailed this large red snapper at the same time. doing my best impression of a troll face while he flexes like a jackass
then it was his turn to nail an amberjack. they don't call these 'reef donkeys' for no reason. they're a bitch to pull in. eventually we had to switch spots, as we were only pulling these bad boys up. we ended up leaving another spot that was riddled with barracudas--yeah, they look cool, but they kill anything you bring to the surface--you end up pulling a fishhead out of the water.
our second-to-last spot was a gold mine. we nailed red grouper after red grouper. we had 3 over 18lbs, and one was over 20lbs. we got 14 red groupers, 5 red snappers, 2 trigger fish, and several mangrove and lane snappers. keep in mind when you look at the picture below, that red groupers (the middle two rows) have to be over 20" to keep. we had an insane amount of fish
took us nearly 2 hours to fillet the fish. we probably had/have over 60lbs of fillets. crazy. you can see this pic was at 8pm, before we started filleting. both days we went out at 6:15am, and came back around 8pm. depending on how rough the seas are, it might be a 2 hour ride each way, just to get out to the spots. we froze all the fish and split it up
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