Feb 27th 2026 12hr overnight St Pete FL (doing it again!)

[JasonGotaProblem]

Shoulders and elbows are giving me hell. It's like they knew. Packing a spinner in case the right arm craps out on me.

And the Tylenol and roll on lidocaine. Weather looks like rain at night (it's an overnight trip). But the fish are wet anyway. I can dress appropriately.

[MACflyer]

Did you make it out Jason? I'm south of you and we had some pretty good storms last night.

[JasonGotaProblem]

Joe and I made it out, and it was a very interesting trip. Weather was far rougher and wetter than predicted, and I think they went to less active spots that were out of the path of the rain. Half the boat was a hearing-impaired veterans group, many were fishing for their first time. Everyone interacted with was super cool, but there were a lot more tangles this trip.

Some good sized fish still came over the rail but neither Joe nor myself got many keepers this trip.

I hooked onto something while I was using my accurate 270. Initially I thought it was the bottom, but it was swimming hard, and I was gaining line. But barely. I was essentially leaning over the rail thumbing the spool and getting 2-3' of line at a time using the rise and fall of the waves for some version of a pump n reel, because my rod was far too bendy to lift whatever this was, and when I remembered to push the button and lock down the drag I started being able to reel a bit, but I remembered I'm using 40' braid so I didn't wanna rush it and snap my line. About 50' from the surface a tangle with someone else's line saw the fish escape. I heard what sounded like a pop or a crack, and now that reel feels rough on retrieve. I may have screwed up a bearing. Time for a service.

[MACflyer]

Happy you and Joe finally made it out and caught some fish. Hard to say what the big one was, but I have noticed the bigger grouper and snapper, 27"+, give a lot of head shakes until you get them pretty close to the boat. What fish won the pool?

[Brewcrafter]

Bummer about the fish and the reel Jason, hopefully nothing too serious. - john