# 56307: Subject: Gulf of Mexico, Alabama

Submitted by capt_dalton (ip 199.254.206.4)

• Fished on 5/20/2007

• Report received: 5/21/2007

Water Temperature: 76
Water Clarity: Clear Blue
Seas: 1' to 3'
Weather: East moving to SE wind maybe 10 to 12 knots most of the day. No clouds, pretty day.
Fishing_for: Biters
Boat: Mar-t
captain: Chris Dalton

Report:
We had the Scogin party on board for a 12 hour trip Sunday. Brothers Jamie and Pat we accompanied by Ike, Beav', Mark and his lady friend.

Since it was to be a 12 hour trip, the plan was to run to the 40 mile rigs and see if any amberjack were hanging around looking for a ride back to Dauphin Island. The water has been very good looking and the cobalt blue water had been reported to be in as close as 30 miles, sooooo, I spent a couple of days getting some high speed wahoo offerings crimped together.

We casted off at 6:08 am. Not too far past farewell buoy, I had Bo deploy the high speed wahoo jets and set the MAR-T on a course of 180 degrees running 15.1 knots. If everything went as anticipated, we'd be at the VK-385 rig at 9:30 am. There were not as many folks in the Gulf as I had expected, so the run was fairly straight. About 10 miles south of the light, the starboard 50 wide started screaming. Now, the water looked good in close, but, not wahoo good. Ike was the first man up and played the fish to the boat nicely. Bo leadered, gaffed and boxed the king mackeral so quick I didn't even see it until we got back to the dock.

There were no more hits on the high speed stuff on the ride out. We put out two big live pin fish where I showed some decent looking marks at 70 feet up current of the rig but we had no takers. I bump trolled around the rig to see if I could find better marks, but, none were to be had. It is worth noting that there was not much bait marking on the bottom machine and no hardtails were up on top. It was a strike out on AJ there.

I know of several spots to the south of that rig and we put baits down on 4 of them. We found some good sized beeliners, some scamp and some white snapper (aka porgie). We kept a couple keepersized red snapper that didn't look like they would make it from their trips up from the depths. We also put an interesting looking and tasty big eyed snapper in box.

I gave the crew the option of heading another 5 miles or so further south to try some more rigs for AJ, or turn north and fish our way back in. The crew chose the second option. So north we headed, with the high speed stuff in our wake. We got no takers on the 9 mile ride to the first stop. More white snapper, some very nice trigger fish and a few more 18"-20" red snapper went into the basket at the first couple of stops. I had in mind where I wanted to get the crew the remainer of their snapper limit. A couple of weeks back while hunting triggerfish, one of my old trigger haunts was covered up with big snapper. When we dropped there Sunday, it was a replay of my last visit. Except this time, I had everyone fishing with big baits and circle hooks. Jamie was first to score on a live pinfish and boxed about an 8 pounder. This got everyone's attention and everyone wanted a live pinfish for bait. After some pretty decent smack talk, Jamie dropped another pinny down and hooked up almost immediately with a clone to his first red snapper. He was in the "zone". But, his brother Pat did a little potlicking on Jamie's spot and put one on the deck a pound or so heavier than his brother. This was just fuel to the fire for Jamie. He fed another pinny to a real puller then he began to quiz Bo on the whereabouts of the gaff as it was surely going to be needed to get the monster he was doing battle with into the boat. It proved to be bad mojoo though as his big fish came upbuttoned just below the boat. (And that is why it is called "fishing" and not "catching"). This little defeat was cause for a beer break for Jamie.

Time was ticking down, but I knew we'd get our last red snapper from this spot and head in. Mark had a rough morning catching the wheel three times before retiring to the big 330 SSI to chill with his lady friend,(whose name I can not remember, sorry guys and gal). Lady friend had trouble getting her seas legs, but, I managed to convince her to man the rod at least one time on this spot. Bo sent her down with a big pinfish and put the rod in the holder. She was instructed to not touch it until the rod tip was in the water, but, the tap, tap, tap of the bait being eaten was too much for her. She got the rod out and began to reel. She was hooked up for a while, but, the fish had not had time to get the 11/0 circle hook in his mouth good enough. She was off, and slightly miffed. I encouraged Mark to drop a whole pogie down on a circle hook just as his lady friend had lost her fish. He hooked up with a good un. The fish was taking drag so I had the others reel up so I could manuver away from the structure. After a sporty fight, Bo gaffed a nice snapper that took the boat big fish pool money at 11 pounds. After a quick count, we needed just one more red snapper to get our legal limit. It came quickly, probably too quickly for the very entertaining group on the boat. We had a 2 hour ride back to the light house and still 45 minutes from there to the dock.

We put out the high speed gear and pointed it north. Again, no takers, but we made good time with the wind at my stern quarter, so, I made a stop at the King Rig, MO-914, for a couple of laps around with Mann's stretch 25's and 30's. According to the bottom machine, the bait, or something, spadefish maybe, were thick all of the way around the rig. After four circuits with no hits, I called it a day and we finished our ride to the dock.

We backed into the slip at 6:08 pm. Total tally for the day was 1 king mackeral, 14 beeliners, 14 white snapper, 7 triggerfish, 1 lane snapper (very nice specimen at 4#s), 1 big eye snapper, 3 scamp and 12 red snapper. A very nice mixed bag of fish even though we blanked on AJ. There were also about a 60 throw back snapper and several dink scamp, beeliners and triggerfish.

The Scogin's party was very enjoyable to have on the boat and I hope they had as much fun as I did with them. I look forward to them fishing with us again.

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