Alantani.com is a great website where people can build friendships and fishing reels. Through this site I am very grateful to have met a great new friend, fellow Army veteran Mike aka Wally15. So far we have had 2 fishing adventures and on June 1-2 we really tested some gear. Found that 40-50lb braid wouldn't hold the snappers and groupers we were messing with. I started out using my Release Reel SG with 40lb power pro and got broke off repeatedly. Mike and I beefed up the tackle to a Penn Baja Special (for me) and a 6/0 (for Mike) with 100lb power pro and 80lb leaders and started winching up the snappers. Spent 2 great days in the GoM and saw some neat stuff. Had this water spout about 1 mile away from us which actually caused us to move off our spot. Overall we caught well over 20 red snapper, 1 giant mangrove, 1 big gag (out of season) and plenty more random fishes.
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Nice fish!
Ain't it great to meet people, to make fishing friends and enjoy the outdoors.
We've had at least a dozen water spouts seen down here with the large pop-up Tstorms moving through.
There have been a couple that were huge and right of the beaches.
Thankfully none came ashore and caused any damage and no one on the water has been hurt.
Good Stuff Joe! Looks like you and wally slayed them! The pic of that spout is Awesome! ;D
Thise waterspout pictures are pretty cool. It has been many years since I have seen one myself, but our fisheries observers occasionally encounter them on their extended voyages, and bring back some amazing videos. It is my understanding that they are much rarer out in the middle of the Central and North Pacific then in the Atlantic Caribean, or Gulf.
Looks like you had a good day out on the water none-the-less.
If I was out on the open water and saw a waterspout like that it would scare the fish out of me. Thanks for the photos and report. Dominick
Some very nice fish, great to see people get together threw this site. Those water spouts are nothing to fool with on the water, great pictures.
I'm the good looking guy holding the red snapper ;D
Hope I don't wear out my arm, or my mojo, before the SOA trip.
10 days and a wakeup!
Wally One Five
One other thing. The 11 day Federal red snapper season brings all kinds of fishermen to the Gulf. JoePlo and I were 22 miles out fishing a reef when a Ranger bass boat (complete with trolling motor and power pole) with 3 guys from Nashville, TN on board came tooling up and started fishing 20' from us. This was not long after we saw the water spout. Don't think the power pole will quite reach 100' down. That was the 2nd bass boat we saw, the 1st (also from Nashville), was "only" 15 miles out. It was a calm day on the water, 1-2 foot swells, but thunderstorms were building all around us. I got caught in one last week and it got ugly quick. 1st time in the Gulf I've ever put on a life vest AND attached the EPIRB.
I like fishing, but I like living a lot more. I haven't finished spending my children's inheritance.
I'd rather be on the beach wishing I was on the water, than the other way 'round.
Mike
Those guys in the bass boat are used to fishing in a crowd, but 15miles out. That's pushin it if bad weather pops up. Wouldn't be me even for the catch you guys have.
Nice Big Snapper!
Looks like a great trip.
I have a buddy who fishes off California in a 22 Ranger but he has 2- 2000 gallons per minute bilge pumps, mounted on the floor in the open part of the boat.
Plus the standard pump has been upgraded to a 1500 GPM ,all running off a battery bank that will keep working while completely submerged.
However, 15 miles out is a long ways in an open boat .
Quote from: theswimmer on June 04, 2015, 03:05:47 PM
Nice Big Snapper!
Looks like a great trip.
I have a buddy who fishes off California in a 22 Ranger but he has 2- 2000 gallons per minute bilge pumps, mounted on the floor in the open part of the boat.
Plus the standard pump has been upgraded to a 1500 GPM ,all running off a battery bank that will keep working while completely submerged.
However, 15 miles out is a long ways in an open boat .
Probably 28 years ago I met and spoke with Forest Wood the owner and designer of the Ranger Boat,at a fishing seminar. He was telling everyone that those boats were unsinkable because of all of the safety and flotation incorporated into them, and they are one heck of a bass boat. For me when it comes to offshore or inshore fishing from a boat, I want more then that under me just from a weather stand point and seas that can come up in a hurry, fish ain't worth my life.
I don't know if Rangers are unsinkable but I was with Peter off Big Sur and we took a big sneeker over the front of the boat .
We lost almost all the freeboard but were still afloat.
His big bilge pumps emptied the water in about 4-5 minutes and I don't want to find out what would have happened if we had taken two big waves close together.
Mike,
Great fish. Let us know how winching up a big yellowtail on a dropper compares to equal weight snappers. You'll find out in a week!
Bill
Nice report and pics! Thanks for sharing. Love eatin' some delicious fishes. ;D
We caught some nice ones also but we were 85 miles out of Sarasota, no bass boats though.
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Mike and I linked up again 20-21 September and tore up the fish both days.
Day 1: Target Red Snapper
Spent a good while on one spot and couldnt get a bite. Decided to move over about a mile and limited out in ~30min.
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Day 2: Target grouper, AJs
Took an extra long boat ride to hit some optimal grounds. Couldnt have had a better day. Ended up being as calm as it can get. Caught limit of Red Grouper rather quickly and then started to wrestle with some AJs. I picked up a respectable 31" fish that barely fit in the cooler. Then Mike had to out-do me and winch up a solid ~40" AJ. Needless to say he definitely didnt fit in the cooler. Amazing day.
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great photos!!!!!!
Nice fish,
Nice Boat!
You Go Mike! ;D
Great Job Guys! :o
That's livin large. Thanks for the report and photos. Dominick
26 September shall be marked as the day that someone out fished me. Mike and I headed out again in search of some grouper. What a strange chain of events that made for a challenging day.
- Weather forecast: 3/4 sources said <1ft seas with winds 5-10 NE shifting to the S <10 and seas calm. We left the canal and clearly this was not accurate. Easily 10-15 NE wind. This wind did not cease the entire day.
- The bait: I cast netted a few pinfish and then we headed out to the buoy to catch some hardtails. As we threw the baits in, they more or less died immediately. Didnt really dawn on us until later on that we filled the well in the canal with very warm feeling water which may have been oxygen deficient. Had we cycled out the water the baits may have lived. Overall we made it to the grouper spot with 4 live baits :-\
Overall Mike was holding his mouth just the right way and he caught 3/4 groupers. Then we spent a solid 2.5 hrs slow rolling through the 2-4fters which were supposed to be <1. Great trip overall, learned a lot and excellent fishing partner as always. Didnt take pics till today but here are the fish and mini-me who absolutely loves everything to do with fish/fishing.
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Very nice, thanks for the report. Love that last pic, nice pose big guy.
What? No mention of the 6' shark I hoisted out of 170' of water, Joe! That was way too much work for an old man like me. Thank goodness Alan T. talked me into buying a couple of Penn 16 VSX's instead of additional upgrades to my 113HN and other Senators. That low gear is NICE. I even got Joe using one.
Daron, what kind of shark is this? The largest beast I have ever gotten to the boat. Fortunately, he took one look at Joe as he broke the surface, it scared the heck out of him, and he broke the 80# mono leader and took off. Or, what I call my "professional release".
And Joe was sticking his arm and GoPro into the water to video the shark. I don't know of any one armed helicopter pilots. Of course, I don't know many sane ones either.
Yesterday (Sunday 9/27) the weather was supposed to be decent until afternoon thunderstorms. Not so! Woke up to light rain so we cancelled the "state waters" red snapper trip. It's STILL raining 24 hours later. Need to ship some of this weather to CA.
Mike
Mike,
Without consulting the GOM shark guides (they are up on this forum somewhere?), I would say you caught yourself a Sandbar Shark there. I am basing this on size/shape/location of the dorsal fin (large'triangular-shaped w/ insertion near mid-point of pecs.), length of head (tip of nose to dorsal insertion equal to 2X dorsal fin base), pectoral fin size/shape (large triangular), and overall impression of the animal (stocky/angular/tall back). I would also suspect that the mouth is set closer to the tip of the nose then it is wide (eleminates Bignose).
I consulted Goadby, Peter Salt Water Game Fishing (1991) page 147. The closest I can come from the diagram and description is it is a Blue Shark. Dominick
Looking at the Tail and the Dorsal. It looks like a spinner to me. JMO
Daron, I think a Spinner has black tips on their fins & dorsal. They are often confused with Blacktips.
This is a spinner.
From the shape of the mouth, the tail and the Size of the Dorsal and Pectoral fins. I think that is what Wally had on the line. Typical for that area.
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