April 6, 2012
Grouper season opened five days ago. Beautiful day – at the moment.
Yesterday we had severe storms in the afternoon with a Tornado touching
down in Tallahassee. The Weatherman says
“Expect severe thunderstorms in the afternoon again today”. Weathermen are idiots though. It is 7:00 a.m. The sky is clear. I downloaded a new app on my Android called “Rainy
Days”. Cool app.
On the boat today is Ryan Brooks and my brother Russell. Both of them are excited, as I am, about our
first foray into grouper hunting – especially when I showed them the picture
Jim Pittman sent me of his Grouper from a few days ago. I have never taken the Triton on a grouper
hunt before. Jim is a fishing God! I taught him everything he knows.
Fred, at Rock Landing Marina gave me some coordinates next
to K Tower (thanks Fred), so we are headed there first. Since I am getting very confident with my
GPS, I enter some new waypoints that I want to hit (channel markers) and we are
off.
We have no problems getting to K Tower. We hit the first spot but I have trouble
keeping the boat on the actual coordinate.
Dropping an anchor 65 ft, attempting to remain stationary while estimating tide, drift and wind is more
difficult than I thought. We quickly
drift off the spot. We catch a couple of
small grunts, but no grouper. I try a
few other GPS coordinates – but except for a few small fish, we really don’t
catch much and we keep drifting. Many of
you won’t believe it, but I get irritated easily. I am irritated. Since we are so near K Tower I decide to head
right to the tower and drift next to it.
Who knows, maybe there are some Grouper right next to the tower.
I am standing on the bow.
I look down. Holy Crap! That is the largest damn shark I have ever
seen! I know the water magnifies things,
but he has got to be at least 9-10 feet long.
He is only a foot under the boat.
He is kind of staring at me hungrily.
I literally got goose bumps. I climb down off the bow, because - well, just because. A few minutes
later, Ryan gets a HUGE hit on his pole.
The line takes off and his reel starts smoking. That ain’t no Grouper. He caught the shark. Have fun with that Ryan! It doesn’t take long for the mammoth shark
to break his line though. Then, Ryan
catches a bird. No really! I have seen birds land
on the boat before, but never on someone’s pole. The bird just sits there and stares at Ryan. Russell takes a picture.
Still nothing at K Tower and the wind is picking up. Clouds are getting darker. I don’t like this. Bad weather scares the hell out of me –
especially lightning. Instead of heading NE back to Rock Landing, I go NW to Carrabelle. We will be
closer to shore, albeit West of our departure location so if the weather turns
bad, we can cruise into Carrabelle Marina.
26 miles to K Tower, 15 miles to Carabelle.
We find something called “Smokehouse Reef” in Carrabelle. The big yacht next to us appears to be
catching fish, so we stop. We catch –
NOT a damn thing! We stay here about an
hour and catch absolutely nothing. Grouper
fishing is hard! Wind is getting stronger. I am a stubborn man, so I decide to head East
again, but instead of heading to the safety of Rock Landing, I head out
to Oar Reef which is about halfway to K Tower and in 55 feet of water.
We reach Oar Reef and seas are easily 4-5 feet now. White caps and large swells. We drop our lines but who are we
kidding. This is impossible. The wind is
steady at 10-15 knots. Sky is
darkening. As a Captain, I don’t like
it, besides we all know I’m a chickenshit.
So we grudgingly head back towards Rock Landing. The
Triton usually cruises quite nicely at 26 knots, but I have to reduce to 17
because of the swells. We stop at a few
locations near shore looking for Trout and Spanish mackerel, but nothing, and I
mean nothing, is hitting our lines. I
even miss the shark. The sun is out but it is
still very windy.
We head in. I probably
burned $200 in fuel, traveled 57 miles and came back to the dock with no
fish. As a Captain, I admit, I feel like
a failure. I really thought we would
catch some Grouper out there.
Easter Sunday next weekend, so no fishing, but the weekend
after that, I intend to fish both Friday and Saturday. Unless somebody convinces me otherwise, I’m
gonna head back to St. Marks and fish inshore locations that I used to know
very well for Reds and Trout. I need to get my confidence back and some fish
on the boat.
On the drive home, the skies let loose. Intense lightning, thunder and rain. Man, I’m glad we didn’t hit this mess on the
boat. Okay, so maybe the weatherman aren’t
complete idiots.
I will write again in two weeks. Tight lines.
Captain Paul
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