[zthomas]

First of all, thanks again for all the advice. Our first trip down from Arkansas was a ton of fun, definitely a learning experience, and we even caught a few fish.

Pulled into Kaplan late Saturday afternoon, went to Gulfway tackle for licenses and charts, and stayed at the Sunnyside motel.

Sunday morning, launched at 6 at the landing in Rockefeller WR between Rollover and Grand Chenier. Gulf was whitecapping and snotty with a solid 3-4 foot chop. The two guys with us who had never been on saltwater before were a little nervous with the spray and the pounding, but we headed on out to the rigs 5 or 6 miles off.

Picked around inside 10 miles for a couple hours catching hardheads and eventually a bunch of little blacktips that everybody had fun pulling on. One of the guys by then was chumming pretty heavily, but the wind had laid down some and we decided to work our way on out.

Finally hit some cleaner water about 15 miles off, and found a rig around 18 where we got a bunch of nice grade Spanish mackerel, and a ton of bluefish, which were at least fun to play with on Krocodiles and bass gear.

Monday decided to try Freshwater City for the shorter drive. Launched at 6 again, hoping for calmer conditions, but it was every bit as rough. The chummer had switched to a different medication, though, and skipped the sausage biscuit for breakfast, so he was way better. So the plan was just to pound our way out until we found the clean water.

Ended up eventually around EC 109, about 33 miles off, soaking wet and pretty well beat up. But then my father in law got maybe a 12-pound snapper on his first bait, and we forgot about the boat ride pretty quick.

Unfortunately, that was the only keeper snapper of the day. We broke off a good half dozen more decent-feeling fish in the rug legs and caught 6 or 8 shorts, and a few more Spanish, but that was it.

Sure wish the weather had been better, but it was a lot of fun overall, and nice to be back on the water after so long.

So, some questions:

How do you rig for snapper? The nice one we got was on a free-lined dead Spanish sardine. It seemed like I was getting bit best, though, with a 3-oz egg sinker. Problem was I couldn’t keep them out of the rig with 20-lb. gear (heaviest we had) when they’d bite down deep. We were using 2-ft dark-colored wire leaders with 6/0 hooks through the nostrils of the sardines. Were we just using too light a gear? Did we need longer leaders? Do you normally catch them on freelines, or fishing vertically? Does braid make it easier to yank them out? Are other baits a lot better?