Capt John 12 Hour Offshore Sunday June 5, 2016
Todays offshore fishing trip by the party boat Capt. John was headed up by Captain Johnny Williams. The first stop for the 80 of us anglers aboard was over natural bottom about 50 miles to the south southeast of the island in 110′ of water. The red snapper were there and biting, until they didn’t when a move was made with about three-fourths of a limit in the fish boxes. The pressure high and low at the st0p was the sighting of a ling in the 40 pound range that cruised by while giving squid, sardine and squid tipped, 3 oz snapper slappers multiple turn downs. I immediately went on “ling watch, fishing and artificial crab about 18” below one of my “super poppers.” I say “fishing,” it was actually watching for the lings return and the opportunity to make a presentation that I know it couldn’t refuse….Right. A ling was caught about halfway up the starboard side but it was a “keeper.” I know if I put my ling-rig away the prize would return, so I hung in there and the ling didn’t show again. It would be nice if every ling would do exactly what you will them to do, lots of luck with that, its sort of like training a cat!
A short run had us at our next stop, a small wreck in 100 feet of water a bit off to the west. This second stop had more red snapper being taken along with numerous Atlantic sharpnose shark and a few kingfish. The red snapper to 14# at this wreck still left the boat about a dozen short of the limit.
The days third and final fishing stop was a few miles inshore over natural bottom. There the remainder of the boats red snapper limit for the day was caught. After that twenty minute spurt it was off to the house with this catch in the iced down fish boxes:
160 Red snapper to 15#
1 Lane snapper
1 Vermillion snapper
9 Kingfish
77 Atlantic sharpnose shark
C.W. Walton, Tulsa Ok., with a red snapper limit to 12# and a kingfish limit of 2, more about C.W. in my closing comments.
Leston Reeves, Leston Jr and Jesus, all of Denver Co., Leston and Jr. in particular have been coming down for a number of years when red snapper is open and they and Jesus did good again with red snapper limits to 13# and a couple of kingfish.
The Justin Doby and Mark Ward group of four had red snapper limits to 10#.
Jim Marigliano, Dallas, with a kingfish, a sharpnose shark and a red snapper limit to 12#, all taken on Carolina rigged squid or Spanish sardines.
Rob Richardson, Athens, had a Atlantic sharpnose shark, a kingfish plus his red snapper limit went to 14#. Pink/chartreuse and red/white snapper slappers did the trick.
Patrick Lemire, Texas City, I had a sharpnose shark, kingfish limit of 2 and a red snapper limit to 14#. Sardine or squid tipped, 3 oz snapper slappers in blue/yellow and blue/white worked for me. Most hits came for me while on the sink, as they did for Rob.
Two unique parts of todays trip were first the conversation on the dock before leaving. John Walton asked Rob Richardson and myself if we would “look out” for his Dad who would be fishing next to us. Not a problem there, the unique part was that his Dad, C.W., was 85 years old. What a great individual and hard fishermen “looking out” for him wasn’t needed. This coming December I’ll be 78 and hopefully still doing well, when I grow up I want to be like C.W. What a great pleasure for Rob and myself to meet and fish with C.W. The other unique piece of the day was seeing another great guy I hadn’t seen in something like 35 years, Mark Ward, my exbrother-in-law, you never know what surprise is waiting when you become part of the mix on the Capt. John, it’s usually all good, as it was today.
See you on the Capt. John!
Patrick Lemire