Fishing trip 7-23-05

Friday night, Bryan and Steve crashed at my place. Drank a few beers, caught a buzz off the Dramamine. Got up at 4:00 am, and drove out to Ponce Inlet, and of course the exit we were supposed to get off on was closed, we had to call the guy that hooked us up with the trip for alternate directions. Got there just after 6:00a am. Very nice Boat, the Captain built it himself!

We took off and went to a spot where we caught bait (small mackerel) Bryan got a hook through his finger, they had to push it through and cut it. He was ok, wish I took a picture of that. 2 hour and 20 min boat ride to the fishing spot. A 50 mile trip I think… We started off drawing number from a hat since there were six of us fishing, and max of 4 could fish at a time, but even that would be pushing it. So we started off with 2 at first. Bryan was 1, Steve was 3 and I was 5. Bryan hooked the 1st of his 4 right away, a huge Leather Jack!(Amber Jack) As you can see from the pics below, it isn’t an easy task. Then Steve got his 1st of 3 fish, another Leather Jack… my turn, I missed a few, then they stop biting… We go to another spot, and I finally get my 1st fish of 2, another Leather Jack. We stayed there for a while taking turns catching mostly Leather Jack, Mike the Snap-On tool guy caught a huge one that damn near killed him! He was wiped out after that one. Then Steve hooked into something real big, took at long time to real it in, it ended up being the catch of the day. A 38 pound Red Snapper! Awesome fish! I’ve never seen anything like that in person. I want one… We then went to another spot, caught a couple of Scamp Grouper(I think) and that was pretty much the day. 14 fish total - 310 pounds!!

We headed back, drank lots of beer and talked on the trip back to the dock. The Captain cleaned the fish when we got back, we separated it, and headed home. I cooked up some of the Leather Jack, came out great. I Fried some on Sunday night, and cooked some on the grill last night. I never had it before, great tasting fish.