9/20 Report.. even caught a RAMORA

[buzzcatcher420]

Alright.. so me.. my girl and a friend of mine went out on the boat yesterday...

We rode around and eventually stopped not to far from the skyway.. bout 50-60 foot water... we already had bait so no need to catch some...

well first things first.. before we even start fishin.. the anchor drops and it gets tangled in the starboard motor blade... GREAT..

me and my friend gotta get in the water and untangle it..

after bout 10 minutes its free... and the first bait goes down...

we were using live shrimp, cut bait, squid and live pinfish...

First fish in the boat... a nice little jack...

next fish i get a real nice blue runner....

i look over and sure enough my girl cant escape the catfish she pulls a big ol cat outta the water... then 5 minutes later.. a littler one...

next the grouper bite starts.. my friend pulls in a nice little red grouper.. we all start gettin excited...

next up.. my turn.. i catch about 3.. all about 18inches or so.. within like 30 minutes.. they fight pretty good for undersizers!

my girl gets herself a few keywest grunts... and then also a few little 10 inch fish that looked like a snapper/grunt mix

i feel on my line a bite.. but then it feels like its gone... i start reeling in.. sure enough.. something on there.. just not something big...

i get it to the top.. its a RAMORA.. never seen one live before.. this one was about 18 inches id say.. looked crazy.. looked like someone STPPED ON ITS HEAd. it had like a shoe print head.. real weird....

we continued to fish for another hour.. pulled in a few more small red grouper and grunts....

then the weather started so we hauled ass back...

nice day all in all... we got to see a good amount of action for only fishin about 2 1/2 maybe 3 hours max..

i wanted to go out farther and to different spots but it wasnt my boat and my friend had other plans.. so maybe next time...

i need me a keeper...

i snapped a bunch of pics.. just waiting on the misses to upload them from her camera!

just thought id share the story with u guys...

[goindeep]

Thanks for the report. Were you fishing over any kind of structure?

[buzzcatcher420]

nah.. we were just lookin for drop offs where the water depth dropped from say 35 foot to 55foot (example)

we werent really prepared this time.. it was like a trial test run... just being out on the water.. gettin used to the boat.. fishing a little here and there...

i didnt really know of any good spots.. anyone know of any?

[ripnlips]

The mack bite fired up for us sunday on the last half of the incomming tide. We were throwing small spoons behind a 3 oz trolling sinker and 6 to 8 feet of #40 flurocarbon leader. Most of them were 14" to 18" but we had a few in the 20" to 24". We ended up catching about 30 or 40 of them but kept 8 for dinner. Left them biting at 3 pm.

[goindeep]

Rip, how to you cook/prepare your macks? Ive tried them twice...first time I baked em with some lemon, butter and seasoning...didnt like em much, they had a strong fishy taste. 2nd time I boiled em, then marinated in italian dressing overnight, then grilled em to heat em up - it was pretty tasty that way.

[ripnlips]

cut the red section out of the fillet and slice the fillet into bite sized sections. dip them in egg and roll them in corn meal and deep fry them. simple and effective. eat them fresh cause they taste like shat if you freeze them. that's why i only keep a few.

[eaglesfanguy]

Sounds like a fun trip Buzz. Get a chart for the area, they have em at T.A Mahoney's Very detailed. Numbers as well as topical references.
The weird fish you caught was a TomTate. Looks like a pinfish but with the grunt mouth big wide mouth with orange tongue. Good bait.

I love spanish macks, But they have to be fresh. And kept COLD!!! Fry em up that day or the next day. There very good, and good for you.

[buzzcatcher420]

yea man not bad at all.. nice to get out there and catch some fish non stop.. still tryin to get a keeper grouper/snook sometime soon... the little red grouper been bitin pretty good! ;D

[eaglesfanguy]

Yes they have been.. another month and the gags should push em out! I been doing good in 80ft.. straight west.. PLACE CALLED THE SULPHER BARGE. Get on your friend, and head out there.

[buzzcatcher420]

imma look into it, preciate it... imma hopefully go out again maybe next weeknd or 2.. im gettin anxious... gotta let the sun burn die down

[bodysnatcher]

You just got to get out and ride around. The spot we gat our groupe and cobia was in 65ft of water. We found them when we were headed out to the 80ft. range. We could not buy a bite so we headed back in and it was game on.

[buzzcatcher420]

Sept 21, 2009 15:19:12 GMT -5 bodysnatcher said:

You just got to get out and ride around. The spot we gat our groupe and cobia was in 65ft of water. We found them when we were headed out to the 80ft. range. We could not buy a bite so we headed back in and it was game on.

what were u guys usin for bait?

ill upload the pics i took tonight and get em up on here hopefully by tomorrow ;D

[bodysnatcher]

The two biggest reds were caught on cut blue runner. All the rest were gotten on pin's and grunts.

[eaglesfanguy]

The reds we caught were all on frozen sardine."Whole". The king took a chunk of ladyfish on the bottom. I couldnt buy a bite on live bait. Had a couple speedos smoked on the flat line. but once i went to steel leader, it was never touched.