Another good day
 

Spent all day yesterday trying to get a shrimp boat off a sandbar. We got it to float and got the engine started. At high tide I was unable to drag it over the shells so we had to leave it again. All day long there were dolphins chasing redfish and at times I saw the redfish jumping out of the water to get away or the dolphins were tossing them up playing with them.

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While out there I get a call from some guys that had an offshore trip canceled and wanted to get fish. I met Tad and his buddies at 6:30 and we were underway a little after 7 in the morning. We made a short run and I anchored up next to my friends that were already into the trout.

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Once I got them into the action I spent most of the time unhooking fish.

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We started bailing trout. I had to measure a few and even tossed some back but overall they were good sizes.

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The box quickly started filling. At this point we had fish on ice.

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I was forced to add water and make a slurry so we could add more fish. By the end of the day the fish were solid in the box and all the slurry was somewhere. We also had action from sting rays, flounder, croaker, red fish, ladyfish, jack crevalle, and hard head catfish.

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It was almost non stop action until about 12:30 when we ran out of bait and had our limit of trout as well as 2 flounder in the box.

We ended up with 110 trout weighing 120 pounds and 2 flounder. for the fish cleaning table. The fish cleaning guys at Venice marina were backed up so after lunch I saw a problem and cleaned them all myself. It was a very good day for the fishermen and a bad day for the fish.

This alligator garfish was floating near the boat launch and stinking so they had to cart it off.

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Life is Good!
Fishing is not a matter of life or death. It's more important than that.

CAPT HOOP -- OUR FREEDOM

As usual Capt Hoop great report. One day I will make a trip with you.