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deep sea fishing in florida


kirks5oh

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guys. we were long-overdue for a mancation to go fishing in sarasota. just got back yesterday, after perfect weather and a great time. :fuckyeah:

 

my buddy's 32 foot boston whaler. he bought it new about a year and a half ago, after deciding a 23 footer just wasn't large enough to go offshore deep. full compliment of electronics, fish finders, radar, every safety option, etc etc.

 

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/5112/dsc00374zy.jpg

 

twin mercury 300's.

 

http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/111/dsc00376wk.jpg

 

heading out to sea, like a boss. we usually go to the farthest spot out and work our way back--we're going about 60 miles out, and 150-175 ft depth. you have to go far out at this point in the gulf, to get to deep water. sometimes you can go 35-40mph, sometimes 20-ish, just depends on the waves

 

http://img545.imageshack.us/img545/8/stormfishing1.jpg

 

first catch--american red snapper, big one. we nailed a few of these the first day

 

http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/3522/redsnapper.jpg

 

 

large gag grouper---too bad they're out of season. this would have been an awesome keeper

 

http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/1092/gaggrouper.jpg

 

this was the first day's take--not too bad. several american red snappers, a red grouper, and some smaller mangrove snappers

 

http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/2757/fish14.png

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day number 2---actually 2 days later. target, again, is a different spot 60+ miles out. these spots are tightly guarded, and my buddy has tons of spots on his GPS, and boat radar. most of them are artificial reefs (old bridges, army equipment, etc--basically anything massive that can be placed at the bottom of the ocean). first couple casts brought some small, non-keeper red groupers, and a few large gag-groupers (out of season). then i nailed this beast. probably 40lbs?? its an amberjack. unfortunately, out of season at this point.

 

http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/4858/fish18.png

 

our buddy mikey also nailed this large red snapper at the same time. doing my best impression of a troll face while he flexes like a jackass

 

http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/8868/87584168.jpg

 

then it was his turn to nail an amberjack. they don't call these 'reef donkeys' for no reason. they're a bitch to pull in. eventually we had to switch spots, as we were only pulling these bad boys up. we ended up leaving another spot that was riddled with barracudas--yeah, they look cool, but they kill anything you bring to the surface--you end up pulling a fishhead out of the water.

 

http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/6782/fish3.png

 

http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/6664/fish17.png

 

our second-to-last spot was a gold mine. we nailed red grouper after red grouper. we had 3 over 18lbs, and one was over 20lbs. we got 14 red groupers, 5 red snappers, 2 trigger fish, and several mangrove and lane snappers. keep in mind when you look at the picture below, that red groupers (the middle two rows) have to be over 20" to keep. we had an insane amount of fish

 

http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/6587/fish10.jpg

 

took us nearly 2 hours to fillet the fish. we probably had/have over 60lbs of fillets. crazy. you can see this pic was at 8pm, before we started filleting. both days we went out at 6:15am, and came back around 8pm. depending on how rough the seas are, it might be a 2 hour ride each way, just to get out to the spots. we froze all the fish and split it up

 

http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/6348/fish11e.jpg

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The rare and "endangered" red snapper, my ass, lol. I'm not sure how it is down there, but they are EVERYWHERE here. You can't go fishing without catching one, let alone diving where you have to push them out of the way to get down to anything else you want to shoot. Yet, the state of Florida says they are rare and endangered and are only open til like July 1st, as short monthish long season. Anyways, good catch man! Too bad gag aren't in season either, would have been some gooooood eating there.
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Looks like a great time man! I'm heading down to Dallas to see a couple buddies for some firearm fun at his new house with a few hundred acres in a couple weeks, then we're heading over to our place in Florida and taking a charter boat out then. I can't wait!
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Jamacian me jealous...I'll be back down to Naples at the end of the month!

 

We picked up a 23' Hurricane 237 - 200HP Yamaha. It's our first boat, but very convenient as it's on a slip with a lift in our condo complex; drop it in the water and 12minutes to the Gulf. Looking to start fishing sometime in the future!

 

For now, it's fun enough for my young family hitting sandbars and some of the beaches you can't walk or drive to easily. SW Florida is 100x more fun with a boat, that's for sure...

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