Last day in the Gulf

BuckWild

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Sep 27, 1999
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TN River
Had an awesome day fishing yesterday. Put in at Bayou Texar ramp and filled the livewell with menhaden in 10 minutes. Hit the pass and decided to run down and fish some of his spots off Navarre Beach, about 22 miles east. About halfway there we saw a large area of feeding activity on the surface and headed out to it. The Bonita were feeding and it was incredible. An area probably 300 square yards and it just kept getting bigger. We ran the boat up to it and started casting silver spoon baits and it was a Bonita on every cast. He keeps two light spinning rods on the boat rigged for Bonita and man talk about fun. They fight like crazy and after 20 minutes we had filled up one of his coolers and then started catch and release. He cuts them up and freezes them for cut bait.

We then head for his first spot, about 8 miles off shore. Pull up and it's covered with fish. We start dropping bait and it never makes it to the bottom. About 85 feet of water and 50 feet down a solid band of fish suspended. Triggerfish. They were attacking the bait on the drop. We caught about 10 of those, including some fricking huge ones but Triggerfish season opens Aug 1 so back they all went.

Now headed to spot number two, 3 miles away. Gulf is flat and we are running about 30-35 mph and approaching the spot. There is a big 45 foot party boat in the distance coming toward us. As we get about 500 yards out, it's apparent that we are headed to the same spot. Now we are throttled back, maybe 100 yards out and the party boat is still on plane and headed right for us. We turn to the left and he does too. Then we go 90 degree right and so does he. The party boat throttles back and is still coming straight for us. About 25 yards from us and still moving fast, we hammer down to starboard and circle around behind him. We are right on top of the spot and I drop the trolling motor and hit the spotlock. this POS circles around and pulls up 15 yards on our port side and sounds his horn to drop bait. Probably 60 people on the boat. We hold our spot and on the first drop my buddy gets hammered and reels in a 12 lb snapper. I hook up but it gets off before I can get it up. At one point the party boat was 20 feet from us. They fished the spot for maybe 10 minutes and nobody caught a fish. They sound the horn and pull off and run about 500 yards to the northwest and meet up with another party boat that was coming out. They circled around for 10 minutes or so and Then start headed back our way. The first boat was a few hundred yards ahead of the second one and here they come. Boat one throttles down and is bearing down toward us. This MF'er passes us about 50 yards to starboard and we hold on to absorb his bow wake. Our boat rolls up and drops down the wake and BAM...I get hammered. I start reeling and just as the second boat rolls by wide open, I pull the fish in, run my hand into the gill, hold him up to show the boat and flip them off with the other hand. LMAO. Snapper went just over 15 lbs.

After that excitement we fished there another half hour and caught maybe 10 barely legal snapper but released all them. About the time we decide to move on, my buddy says holy sh!t there's a mahi swimming by. He grabs the lightweight rod with the spoon bait and casts it out about 10 feet in front of the fish. Bam...hooked up and the aerobatics began. This thing mad three jumps right off the bat at least 10 feet in the air. Circled the boat twice, jumping like crazy but finally tired out and we got it in the boat. A very large bull mahi, pretty impressive.

Now on to spot 3. It's 2 miles east and 1 mile further out in the gulf. We head out and about a mile out, I look at the graph and there is a large tower like structure sticking 30 feet up off the bottom. I elbow him and say check that out. We are in 95 feet of water and this thing is not that wide but it is marking fish like crazy. He marks it and we turn around and ease back. Holy crap, this thing is thick with fish. We drop the trolling motor, hit the spotlock and drop bait. Mine hit bottom and went slack, I took up the slack and got absolutely smashed. Got it to the boat and it was a 16 lb red snapper. About this time my buddy hooks up and he pulls in a 24 inch red grouper. I rebait and drop and as soon as it hit bottom, smashed. Reeled in another snapper that wound up being about 12 lbs. So we had our limit of snapper so we were gonna target the grouper since we already had one in the boat. I baited up with a live menhaden and dropped it. Ten seconds down and smashed again. I start reeling and it was big, got it up about 15 feet down from the boat and my buddy says huge grouper....huge grouper and gets the gaff. I get the fish about six feet from the boat and a monster bull shark runs up and grabs the fish and hauls azz. Strips about 100 yards of line and then breaks off.

Man was I pizzed...

We fished the spot and hooked up on every drop but never got another fish to the boat. Fricking sharks wore us out. At one time we had 5 big bull sharks circling the boat about 5 feet down.

By now it was 1 in the afternoon so we decided to call it. We got ready for an 1.5 hour ride back to Texar and took off. We got about halfway back and spotted the Bonita feeding frenzy still going on so decided to do some catch and release. We caught Bonita til my reeling arm started hurting... those suckers fight like crazy.

Not bad for our last day. He wants me to come back this fall when the bull reds start running. You would not believe the photos and videos he has of them catching huge redfish.

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BuckWild

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Sep 27, 1999
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TN River
Looks to be an awesome trip for you. What size and brand boat is he running? I am in the researching and looking phase. My son closes on their new home in Pace on Tuesday. He will have a building for a boat storage and I have the money. Lol Works out I guess.
He runs a 22.5 foot Robalo center console with a 200 hp yamaha.

It is a nice boat but 2 foot waves in the gulf is about all you want to do in this boat. If he could afford it he said he would have went with a 27 foot with a 350 hp outboard
 

Snowwolfe

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Dec 2, 2013
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5,562
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Between Crossville and Cookeville
He runs a 22.5 foot Robalo center console with a 200 hp yamaha.

It is a nice boat but 2 foot waves in the gulf is about all you want to do in this boat. If he could afford it he said he would have went with a 27 foot with a 350 hp outboard
If I only had a few extra million then I could get the boats I want.
Didn't someone make a song about that? LOL
 

Bgoodman30

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Nov 21, 2016
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2,349
Awesome. Any pics of the Mahi? We lost one couple weeks ago about 35# when I couldn't get the gaff in him... That's a good snapper bite most folks been having to run 30+ miles for keepers lately.
 

BuckWild

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Joined
Sep 27, 1999
Messages
8,239
Location
TN River
Awesome. Any pics of the Mahi? We lost one couple weeks ago about 35# when I couldn't get the gaff in him... That's a good snapper bite most folks been having to run 30+ miles for keepers lately.
Did not get any pics of it. We were shocked when it swam by and put it in the livewell and started fishing for the mahi. I had one on the line but lost it at the boat then another 4 or 5 swam by but we couldn't get them to bite. By the time we got around to taking some pics, the mahi looked like crap so we didn't take a pic.

Monday a guy came to his house to finish some work on their kitchen cabinets and he had gone out Saturday as well. He said they came up on a buoy out in the gulf that had a piece of net and a grass mat somehow tangled on the buoy. He said they caught a limit of 30 mahi in less than an hour. You know that was awesome. They had some huge ones.
 

Bgoodman30

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Nov 21, 2016
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Did not get any pics of it. We were shocked when it swam by and put it in the livewell and started fishing for the mahi. I had one on the line but lost it at the boat then another 4 or 5 swam by but we couldn't get them to bite. By the time we got around to taking some pics, the mahi looked like crap so we didn't take a pic.

Monday a guy came to his house to finish some work on their kitchen cabinets and he had gone out Saturday as well. He said they came up on a buoy out in the gulf that had a piece of net and a grass mat somehow tangled on the buoy. He said they caught a limit of 30 mahi in less than an hour. You know that was awesome. They had some huge ones.

Yep we found a floating palm tree and kids had a ball. I cut them off at 28 or so unless they were going to help clean them!

Last pic is big one that got away couple days before on Fad1.

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Crow Terminator

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Joined
Oct 23, 1999
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12,723
Location
McMinn County
Very nice!! Thank you for the story and pics.

My dad and I went for the fall bull red run down there. It is insane. They turn a bright orange color when they do that...look like big pumpkins. We caught several up to the 40# range...eventually got tired of catching them and started fishing for speckled trout.
 

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