East Bay for the day

[capt hoop]

We had 6 people in from Flordia that wanted to go off shore and booked 2 days with Eddie Burger. His Captain Mike Pittman was going to run both days on the Twin Vee and Eddie had tomorrow booked on his Contender. The weather was not going to let us get offshore. The customers decided that seeing they were here they would at least like to get out on the water. They fish here in the summer with thier own boats but this was a different type of trip.

Mike asked me to deck for him because of the type of trip and off we went to do some catching. The day started out in about 35 feet of water. I will start by saying every other fish was a red snapper. None needed any type of venting due to shallow water and all were released useing an R&R dehooker. We never had to touch any of them.



Right off the bat we were putting some fish in the box. It was going to be a mixed bag day. All we had to do was weed through the red snapper and hard head catfish. The big redfish and black drum all went back.



We did put 3 black drum into the box but this and all bigger went back. The same with the redfish. We only kept 3 of them and let 4 bigger ones go back to breed or make another fisherman happy. The box was starting to slowly look pretty good with mangrove snapper, Lane snapper, Trigger fish, Red fish, Sheepshead, and Black drum.



As the day went on we were talking about how the winds were increasing instead of decreasing as forecasted. We were hoping to stick our nose out and maybe troll for some wahoo or drop for some amberjack. With an occasional wave comming over the bow as we were tied to a rig in the protected waters of the bay our desires were nothing but that. We just kept busy adding to our pile of mixed, good eating, fish.





The day was cold by our standards and the wind on the water went right through us keeping us cold and uncomfortable all day but the action was so fast that I don't think anybody felt it untill we started in at the end of the day. At the dock we filled up a dock cart with 35 lane snapper, 3 red and black drum each, 7 trigger fish, 3 mangrove snapper, 1 white trout, 2 big croaker, and 5 sheepshead.



We threw back 1 small gag grouper that is also out of season. 1 small, about 18 inches, amberjack caught on a shrimp on a carolina rig. 1 atlantic sharpnose shark.



In the above picture the biggest croaker is just above the lowest lane snapper to the right. I pointed this out to show you how big the croaker was. The other croaker is laying on it's tail with the white belly facing you. Both were very good sized. Overall we had a very productive day. A LOT of action all day long.

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

CAPT HOOP -- OUR FREEDOM