A Good Day On The Gulf

[gcolton]

It was a beautiful day on the Gulf here in the Panhandle of Florida.

Before we went out I was a little concerned that Dolly may have the Gulf waters roughed up. It looked bad as we approached the Destin pass, but while it was rough in the pass it was beautiful once we were clean. There were some long period 4 foot rollers.

We brought home 4 King Mackerel. I had 4 lines in the water trolling. The two rods with the medium planers seemed to do best. We had two equipment failures: one barrel swivel broke and the steel leader on an artificial lure broke right at the lure. A young lady on board had a problem landing the fish she was working.

All in all a very enjoyable day.

G

 

[Bill D.]

George, I talked with a captain from your area just last week, while Harlan and I did some work on the Bertram. He said your close in public reefs are still producing legal size snapper. In fact, he was cooking some on his boat while we worked. Destin is a great place, but I remember it from the early 60's when it was a sleepy little fishing village. It makes me sad to see it today,,,,but that's progress. Do you ever anchor or the reefs and fish? We float two flat lines while bottom fishing for snapper and grouper. We use pinfish, blue runners, hardtails, or the like,live and cigar minnows and finger mullet if we must use dead baits, both under a ballon float for kings. A good size hardtail or 'runner will, almost always put a really big king on the end of the line. Fishing this way we catch good table fare and have good fights with the kings......best of both worlds.

 

[gcolton]

Good morning Bill. Yes, I also understand that the snapper are still in relatively close.

I have not done any bottom fishing since I sold my last boat 5 years ago. During the heat of the summer I prefer to troll and leave the sitting still for cooler weather. Plus I do not have any coordinates yet set in my navigation equipment. Also the bottom rigs are out of date as the circle hook regulation came out since my last adventures in that area. I found that you have to be careful of what circle hooks to buy. Seems there is one legal in Florida and another criteria for Federal waters. I got some that are supposedly good for either. It is hard for me to discern the difference.

The technique of flat lining while bottom fishing is good. That is a good place for live bait. That is another thing I have to check out. This boat has about a 30 gal live well and I have yet to check that. There are just too many little duties to accomplish on a new, used boat when there are also other important things to do.

I happen to be one of these rare people who like to eat King. In fact I prefer it to red snapper. To me the snapper is too soft and mild. I like my fish to taste like fish. I just got through vacuum bagging several packages of yesterdays catch and they will go into the freezer. Have invited company for this weekend so hope they like King.

Good luck on your fishing.

George