Capt'n Hook: Slayed Em

Only three of us on the boat today: Russell Paul, Gene Griffin and me. The rest of you boys had to work on Friday! Go figure.

Short blog this time.

I didn’t even bring any small rigs today. Marine APP is calling for 1-2 ft seas and no chance of rain. I haven’t seen that APP show seas that small since last year. It has been extremely windy here for months and months. Man, did we get beat up fighting the waves two weeks ago in that Rock-the-Dock tournament. The slamming of the boat up and down forced me to go see a Chiropractor.

But not today! As we leave the channel, no white caps. I like it I, like it..

45 minutes later – we reach Oar Reef. 50ft of water – not too deep, but I really like this reef. It is becoming my favorite. I’m learning some good spots on it.

The big question: Have the Kings arrived from South Florida yet? That is why we are here.

A little something different today as we are going to try to use a downrigger for the first time. Thank you, Major Mike Wood of the Leon County Sheriff’s Office, for the gift. I plan to put the ribbon fish lure that went through my finger two weeks ago on that downrigger. That is probably a better place for it, you think? So we put out: One red stretch, one ribbon fish on a downrigger and one teaser (skirt) in the middle.

Russell, of course, immediately pulls out a banana. “Thanks for the tip Jeff Paul,” he says. (You would have to read my last blog to understand). So he throws the banana in the water. No kidding, exactly one minute later – ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ, the trolling line goes nuts. Large ass grouper. I’m a little disgusted. I call in to Rock Landing Marina to see if we are absolutely, positively in Federal waters. I call several times – no answer. Oh crap, I don’t think my VHF radio is transmitting. That is bad. But then Sea Tow answers, plots my coordinates, and yes, we are in Federal waters by one mile. Back in goes the grouper. You just have to cringe. I really do need to vent soon through my blog.

I find out later that the marina FORGOT to turn on their radio. Oops.

I promised to make this a short blog. So suffice it to say, we had an amazing day fishing. We caught lots of Kings and lots of grouper. I know it’s a good day when I'm eating a sandwich; the trolling line goes crazy; and I lackadaisically say “Hey, one of you guys get it, it’s probably just another damn grouper”. And it was.

Normally, I place pictures throughout the blog, but since we caught so many damn fish, here are a few of them all at once. My favorite is Gene Griffin holding the one by the tail. That was Gene's first Kingfish and it was huge. Nice fish dude. Russell was no slacker either though: