I was with Thomas again on his 26 Calcutta. This time he brought his daughter and 2 sons with him. The first day he wanted to fish a weed line for mahi. The kids had Shimano 4000 reels and light rods with 30 pound braid. We could not find a line but on a big patch of weeds the kids went to town. They had a ball catching and after a few we went to releasing all the rest. Ended up keeping 14 of them.
From there he wanted to get some snapper and deep drop for other fish. Turns out the amberjack and sharks had other ideas. I moved to another rig that had some big snapper on it. These were too big for the kids to bring in. The fish were aggressive and just would dive back into the rig and break off or using their strength they would rip the hook out of their mouth. We had to work for every one we caught. Ended up with 8 red snapper and 2 good mangrove snapper. Started cleaning them before I even thought of a picture. This is 2 mangrove and one red.
The chicken dolphin.
The second day we decided to get some red snapper first. This worked out fine and by 9:00 we had our limit and one good mangrove as a bonus. The only way the kids could land any was by using the electric reel.
Thomas also used the electric reel but I took them the old fashion way. Broke off a few but landed my share. They are very tough fighters at that size.
From there we went looking for a line again. We found one just forming with nothing but a current at the time. It did not take long before it was looking good so we started trolling. We trolled a red and white Russelure and a green X-rap. I could not keep the Russelure in the water.
As you can see there are no weeds yet but something is holding the fish here. A little further down we start seeing some weeds and things just get better from there. Once we located a large group of these we let the kids go at it again. We released all except for 3 better sized ones including this one that he caught on the trout rod and 4000 Shimano reel. This long fight was fun to watch but I was too busy baiting and unhooking the other 2 kids lines while positioning the boat for the fish on the line.
There were scattered tuna around but it was not our day to hook up to any of them. We ended the day at a reasonable time instead of stretching it as the previous day when they ate supper at 9:00. We had a nice rack of fish to hang anyway.
Life is Good!
Fishing is not a matter of life or death. It's more important than that.
CAPT HOOP -- OUR FREEDOM