An Evening On The Gulf State Pier

[ChileRelleno]

An evening on the Gulf State Pier, beautiful evening, cool breeze made it very nice and the bikinis & Super Moon provided some great scenery.

To think that I woke up at 3am, thought about fishing but was too lazy to load the car, and went back to bed till 10am.
Didn't make the pier until 5pm... Better late than never and an August afternoon in the AC is a small blessing for a fat boy.
The Spanish & Blues were still coming over the rails, Spaniards were few, but the Blues were steady entertainment.
My boy was having a great time "Jacking'em Up!"

Everyone, myself included, were hoping the Reds would make an appearance.
A group of local pier rats played a practical joke on half the pier.
They all hooked into the rail, bowed their rods up and started hollering about the Reds being there... Instant Insanity!
Want to know what a herd of buffalo sounds like stampeding?
I fell hard for it & was grabbing a fat Pinfish I'd been saving out of the cooler when they fessed'up.
Great joke, everyone had a laugh, excepting a few too serious to know fun when slapped upside their head with it.

Saw a Poon or two roll, a few sharks jumping and cruising, some Flounder caught, a Guaganche, Look Downs, plenty of Ladyfish & some Hardtails.
Bait was scarce from what I could see.

My boy & I put a decent number of fish in the cooler, & we topped it off with donations of unwanted fish.
Left at 9pm with better than half a 94qt cooler full of Blues & Spanish.

[harryk3616]

looks and sounds like you had a fantastic day, nice going

[Alto Mare]

John, that looks awesome. Thanks for sharing.

[Bryan Young]

Now that looks like fun.

[Islandgypsy]

Great report Chile R...enjoyed the imaginary redfish bite.

[Cone]

Good job John! I know Nathaniel had a blast!    Bob

[ChileRelleno]

Bob & Daron, eight of those Blues got froze, bait for our sharking trip in Sept. 

The rest were dinner tonight and lunch for tomorrow.

[Shark Hunter]

Good Job John! Those Blues will primo bait!

[broadway]

I didn't know you guys have our bluefish down there in the summer? ...I thought they migrated down there in the fall/winter.
I see they're smaller than ours, but that could just be the school you ran into.  Do you get big blue devils (15+lb'ers) down south?
Just curious... was the one with no tail misbehaving or bleeding him?
Nice catch!
Dom

[ChileRelleno]

I didn't know you guys have our bluefish down there in the summer? ...I thought they migrated down there in the fall/winter.
I see they're smaller than ours, but that could just be the school you ran into.  Do you get big blue devils (15+lb'ers) down south?
Just curious... was the one with no tail misbehaving or bleeding him?
Nice catch!
Dom

Just the average size in that school.
I chopped his tail off to clear a tangle of lines, he did bleed out and his fillets were a bit nicer.
Perfect eating size these were 

There are two major 'Groups' of Bluefish, an Atlantic & Gulf, both migrate North in the summer.
The Atlantic group consistently produces schools with much heavier fish than the Gulf group.
The Gulf however does get some larger ones in the 10-12# range.
There have been instances where a Atlantic group school has made a wrong turn in the Keys, entered the Gulf and brought us 15-20# fish.