Fishing with Mark

[capt hoop]

Once again I had the pleasure of running with Mark on his beautiful 26 Calcutta. The winds were up so the idea of tuna was out of the question. I wanted to go to the East due to West winds building throughout the day but Marty wanted to stay on the west side because the storms were all around and that would be the quickest way in if things got bad. We made a shot at some of the close rigs for some trout or triple tail. Not much happening except hardheads and gafftop. As forecasted the seas picked up as the storms moved on. Before we left the area we did get a very nice redfish for the box. The spots were amazing.



We then made a long move to East bay by going back inside, past the marina, and running the inside passes to our new area. Our hopes were to find some lane snapper, white trout, croaker, Mangrove snapper, etc. Once there we hit several rigs only to find red snapper both keeper size and shorts. The bite was instant. Drop, stop, and already lost the bait. We also had a bunch of trigger fish eating well. I used a matrix shad and it was instantly destroyed. The teeth marks spell trigger fish.



It was well into the afternoon and our 1 redfish in the box was very lonely. We moved into the shallows and changed our fishing methods We still had a lot of live shrimp left and almost clean ice. We stopped right at the mouth and began fishing for food. The bite was not on fire but enough to keep us there. A little after 4:00 we had a good looking box.



No limits but enough to put some food on the table. We brought in 10 redfish, 5 sheepshead, 3 croaker, and 1 black drum.



Another long but nice day on the water. I was also blessed to view another outstanding sunset on the way home.



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

CAPT HOOP -- OUR FREEDOM