Opening day of Red grouper!

[Veikx]

Hey there! First time posting up a fishing report here so hope it doesn't suck.
After waiting these three aggravating months of poor snapper fishing offshore, the wonderful red grouper season was open.
At 6:30 we were splashing the boat at Punta Rassa boat ramp. By 7:00 we had the boat loaded to them brim in 3 sets of dive gear and 6 dive
tanks along with the rest of the ice and rods. By then the sun was starting to rise and we were on our way to grab some nice healthy bait.
Once we were loaded with some blue runners and pins we made our run out 40 miles to our "grouper alley." Where within 4 hours we almost
limited our red grouper out with 5 guys. We managed 19 RG w/ the largest being 28". We then headed to a nearby wreck where we proceeded to mess around with some new toys we just got and catch some decent size mangrove snapper and one yellowtail.
Most of the mango's were speared along with
one porgy for the box. The weather report was a mess for sure, at 2 am it showed for 20 knot winds, only to wake up with the report showing
less than 5-10 most of the day. On our way back we were greeted with north winds 15 knots with quartering seas 2-3 feet which made a for a bit bumpy ride. Overall, it was a good trip and every one walked home with (2) one gallon ziplock bags of clean fish.
Can't wait till next weekend!:

[sagory]

Wow! Nice catch

[Gamekilla]

Wow..thats one heck of a day. nice job.

[larrywitt]

Thats one heck of a way to start the new season..What worked best for the REDS??
larrywitt

[Veikx]

It's really a toss up on what was the preferred. We caught some nice 8" lane's when we were getting our blue runners and pins and some grunts. Id have to say the live bait was tearing them up. We did have two or three on nice 6" frozen thread fins caught on saturday.

[Postguy]

whats the story on the lobsters? At least that is what I think they are in the cooler (slippers?)

[Angler Systems]

Nice. Everyone I talked to up this way loaded up on Red Grouper Sunday. We did good as well.

[chico]

Nice!!! It's cool to be able to dive down and actually see first hand what's going on down there!!!

[Veikx]

Postguy, My buddy was talking about them and he picked them up. He said they're supposed to be sweeter than spiny lobsters. I'm waiting for him to cook them up and maybe bring me a piece. When he went down, two of them were chilling on the side of some swiss cheese bottom and just grabbed them.

Chico, its great to see what type of bottom your fishing on. I recently had a buddy of mine sell me his underwater camera. I can hook it up to my garmin 5212 and check out what the bottom is like w/o sending a diver down or myself. You get a better understanding of drifts, and even the couple wrecks that i go to which way i need to anchor up to get the chum flowing to the fish etc..

Tight lines! -- Chris

[Sharktagger]

Welcome to the forum....nice job on the trucks and those slipper lobsters are incredible grilled with lemon n butter!! No season or limit on them either!!