The crew met up at the ramp @ 0630 and off we were looking forward to the predicted 2-3's wave forecast. Nice smooth ride to the P-cola pass but lil did I expect the huge grounds swells that would greet us.
The WX missed it again and the predicted 2-3's turned into 4 - 5's with stiff east winds but we pressed on toward the edge. (28 mile south east of P-cola pass)
Very slow ride out to say the least
The crew would be Matt, Jeff and I and while Matt is a well seasoned angler this would be Jeff's first time offshore.
We arrived the edge @ 0845 with nothing but them ruby red lips and white snapper to show for our effort. Even the dang mingo boat wasn't fishing while at anchor so I took this as a bad sign and @ 11:00 the east winds began to ease some so we made our way to the Yellow Gravel. (32 mile mile south of the P-cola pass)
We hit several spots and finally found the scamp bite and a few mingo and of course several white snapper....Jeff was on fire and landed 2 nice keeper scamp on a chicken rig tipped with squid..Jeff also caught all the mingo and a nice keeper red grouper while Matt went 0 for 2 on the grouper pole but did manage to jigged up an Almaco and a scamp or 2....I was able to contribute a couple of scamp to the box but mostly manned the helm...To rough to anchor but did have some pretty sweet drifts not to fast lines kept vertical so can't complain too much...The return trip was much faster with following seas and entered the pass from the east avoiding those nasty large rollers....The calm bay was a pleasant site so we hammered down towards Shoreline to clean our not so overwhelming fish box...I'm still swaying a bit...lol
My camera didn't store our action shots for some reason (forgot the memory card) so all I can show is the table with some of our bounty of the day...
Final tally:
6 Scamp
1 Red Grouper 23"
1 small Almaco
4 lil mingo
8 lg white snapper not pictured
Jimmy