We really haven't had much notable going on. Well, maybe....
Our red snapper season started June 4. Every year, like clockwork, we catch a ton of them during the spring. Then when the season opens they seem to disappear.
This year we figured we had a better shot at them since we now have a boat that can get us to deeper water. Our first trip out deep was cut short due to a storm. We got about half way out and it blew up on us. One of the guys we took was already getting seasick so we didn't make it any farther. We managed a couple of small red snapper but that was it. The next trip was right after the hurricane. The spots we had been catching them in were barren. That's been the reports from most fishermen.
The big story, though, is the red tide. The bay is pretty much dead. Tons and tons of dead fish have been pulled out. The city hired all kinds of folks to pull them out. The shrimp boats have been most effective. The bay itself looks a lot better but there's still a bunch in our canals. However, the red tide is still here. It stinks and the water is a nasty looking brown.
This sort of hampers offshore fishing because I can't get live bait. We use frozen which works sometimes, but not always.
So, it has been a sort of tough summer. Not horrible. Just not great.
Here's some pics.
A decent gag grouper.
A big mess of mangrove snapper. YUM!
This one has been the highlight of the summer. It is a 5'-6' cobia. An absolute monster. We hooked it on our lightest tackle. It took over a half hour to get to the boat. It was so big that we didn't really need all of the meat so we didn't want to kill it. We tried getting it's head into the net and grabbing the tail so we could at least get a picture of us holding it. But it wasn't meant to be. Too much fish.