The oh so kind NOAA allowed a 28 day season to chase the "over harvested" red snapper. With three days left in the season I was able to arrange a trip out to try and get some for the table.
Larry and Phil were staying at St. Joe and came over the Carrabelle to try and get some too.
If Phil is here there is a no doubt a tropical disturbance in our future so I was wary to his arrival.
We headed out towards V tower through some rough seas through East Pass, but getting on plane as we cleared the sandy shoals entering the pass.
We dropped down near the Navy tower but only a couple of light taps greeted us at the 70' drop.
The decision was made to motor another 10 miles to the deeper 100' of water and the day turned into a catch fest as the fish were enjoying deeper depth.
Many small under sized snapper came aboard.
We kept banging away catching lane snapper, beeliners, red grouper, king mackerel, sea bass,sharks and of course the larger red snapper.
While no giants were brought to the box, I did catch a nice 24" red snapper. I let Phil hold it for me when we got back near the hill. He was feeling bad not setting up on any biguns.
Larry caught this nice smoker on squid on the bottom. Go figure.
We filled the fish box with a lot of color.
As you can see from the pictures, we had to wait out a thunderstorm at the mouth of the Carrabelle River.
But, thankfully, we didn't get wet.
It was nice chasing the red snapper with a good group of guys that enjoy fishing at the Forgotten Coast.
