Another day trip to Grand Isle for the third Saturday in a row.
Got to the marina at 5:35 and as soon as I got out of the truck I realized that NOAA had missed it by a mile today. When we cleared the pass we were greeted with a stiff 10-15 mph SE wind and 2'-3' seas instead of the 0'-1' that was predicted.
Eased out at 15 mph towards the platform that we had success at the the last two weeks. Heading at a bearing of 150 deg meant that we were taking the choppy seas dead ahead which made for a wet and bumpy ride. Less than Ideal but we had 2 new guests on board and were not going to throw in the towl without giving it an honest effort.
Decided to stop at a double platform about half way to our intended destination to wet a line but mostly to wait to see what the seas were going to do.
Fished there without much luck for ~45 minutes.
FM911 did hook onto a shark on some light tackle. The shark gave us an acrobatics show jumping 5' out of the water before cutting the line.
Seas didn't increase or decrease and nothing was happening at his location so we decided to continue SE.
The 19' Mako had just about all it wanted with the 2-3' chop (FM911 correct me if I'm exagerating the wave height). I never felt as if we were in danger of being swamped or capsized but we definitely found the limit of what is safe in this boat. We just took our time so that we didn't beat the **** out of the boat or crew.
One boat was already tied to the rig when we arrived and after an adventure of finding the best place to tie up we finally got some slime on deck. Scratched out a limit of Red Snapper along with 2 Vermillion Snapper.
FM911 was also able to tag and release two nice Red Snapper along with a decent Amberjack. Pretty sure there aren't too many tagged AJ swimming around out there.
The seas had laid down around 10:30 so when we headed NW at 12:30 we had a smooth ride in at 25 mph.
After catching 4 lemon fsih and getting spooled and broken off several times last week at this same location I upgraded to 90lb string and heavier leaders. Turns out this week only snapper were hungry. This reinforced to me that you should always be ready for anything bc there is no guarantee that you will get another shot at the big one!
Big thanks to FM911 for all of the help while on the water and especially while cleaning everything up. Having a crew that helps this much makes all of the difference in the world. You really went above and beyond and it did not go unoticed.
Got the heavy tackle and poles cleaned, organized, and stored away. Short season but we definitely took advantage of it this year. Time to get mad at the trout.
It really is ashame that we are lucky enough to live right next to the GOM and only get to fish it for a short period every year when the federal govt says it's ok.