# 56213: Subject: Gom, Alabama

Submitted by capt_dalton (ip 199.254.206.4)

• Fished on 4/23/2007

• Report received: 4/25/2007

Water Temperature: 70-71
Water Clarity: Crystal Blue
Seas: 2 foot rollers
Weather: Blue bird day with little wind offshore, plenty of wind out of the ESE inshore though
Fishing_for: Any Takers
Boat: Mar-t
captain: Chris Dalton

Report:
Monday, April 23th, aboard the MAR-T

I checked the buoys for wind and wave height Sunday night to get an idea of where I was going to fish Monday. Well, the forecast was a broken record from the weekend. Three to five foot seas, 15 knots east wind, turning to southeast in the afternoon, yadda, yadda, yadda. After two days of being tossed about in the gulf, I just really did not feel up to another day of that. When I got up Monday morning and checked the buoys, one reports 3.9 foot seas at 4.5 seconds and the other reported 5.9 at 6.5 seconds. I was going to meet the Chris Thompson crew at the boat and give them the low down. It was going to be rough. If they wanted to move their date or cancel, I was fine with it. But, just on a hunch, I rode to the east end first to see what the water looked like……well, I don’t know what planet the NOAA forecast was for, but, it was not the one I was looking at. It was nearly flat. We were going.

Monday the Gulf was nearly void of any boats, and it was calm. Unfortunately, I had planed on it being really rough, so my route didn’t go much farther than 19 miles. I had been hauling a live well full of pinfish around for two days in the rough seas and had only caught two or three fish on them. That, and the fact that someone managed to knock off the threaded drain connection on my live well may me decide to not worry with the live bait. Man, hind site is surely 20/20.

Chris’s crew had some folks that had been offshore before and a couple of stone cold rookies. He and his brother grew up fishing so they where holding high hopes when I passed around the Red Snapper Championship sign up form. My plan was to hit a few closer spots that produce well and hold big fish. I mean heck, it was going to be rough, right?

As we passed the light house, breakers could be seen rolling over Dixey bar to the east and the Sand Island bar to the west. But, there were no white caps, just a gently rolling 2 foot swell, with and occasion three, but, it was looking beautiful.

I checked 5 spots I had marked since opening day in hopes of finding a new fishing hole to add to my list. 0 for 5. There is so much bait swimming around out there since the decline in shrimping effort, I guess that is what I saw.

The first stop was holding plenty of hungry fish, but, they were all of the must be measured variety. We took 7 keeper red snapper there. Spot number two was my go to tourney spot from two years ago, but, someone has found and hammered it hard, but, I figured since it had been so rough, maybe I was going to be the first to visit. The fish marked well, but, were slow to bite and it took a while to get them going. Sharks were cruising at 45 feet and any baits up high were susceptible to their appetite.

Slowly though, we managed some good fish from there and two or three got my anglers back into the structure. We took a dozen fish there and went to a spot that has produced a large number of fat snapper. I am always apprehensive about going there because I do not want anyone to find it. But, there were scant few boats in the gulf. The next big lump in the throat comes in wondering if the fish are still there like in the past.

I had the whole crew bait up with the biggest baits on the boat on circle hooks. All six anglers dropped. The fish were holding deep. A few guys dropped deeper. Nothing. Hhhmmm, not good. I told them to check their baits. Surely they can’t have any bait, or they would be bowed up. ‘Bout that time the brothers both hook up. The rest of the crew reeled in and sure enough. They had gotten their baits stolen on the drop.

Once everyone got re-baited, the catching was on. Drags were singing and I could hear rods crackling as they were being bent double. As quick as it began, it was time to stop. The legal limit had been met. The 220 quart SSI was full and we had over flowed into the big 330 SSI. I only had one problem now. It was only 11:47 and the bogus forecast had made me plan such that I was in the wrong place to go for AJ.

I decided to see if I could locate some triggerfish or beeliners in 100’ of water. Well, I tried about 10 spots and came up blanko on keeper triggers. We caught a plethora of dink red snapper. We found some ruby red lips, now prohibited as bait, and some nice little chopper blue fish, which did spend some time as bait, unsuccessfully. We tried several rigs for ling, but, no takers.

On the way to the house, I pulled a drone spoon and a red and white stretch 30 in the area I had gotten a king on Saturday. No takers. The water was 71 degrees and a clear blue all of the way to Farewell buoy. Saturday, it was 68.3 degrees and a mixture of green and brown.

Back at the scales we had no tournament winners, but, our catch of 32 red snapper and 2 triggerfish weighed in at 260#s. I took pictures of the crews’ catch on Chris Thompson’s digital camera and hope he emails me a copy.

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