Offshore/Inshore-Panama City 6/2 & 6/3

[chumhead]

With the Snapper Season opening on June 1, I opted to sit that day out and wait 'til Tuesday 6/2 after things calmed down a bit. Drove past the boat ramp Monday A.M. and figured out it was a smart move, as there were more trucks/trailers there than I have ever seen. I bet you could practically walk to Cuba from boat to boat fishing for snapper.

Headed out mid morning on Tueday with one of my regular fishing partners, Steve, and Kevin, the young man I took out back in Dec. that caught a bunch of nice grouper. We pulled up to our favorite spot only about 5 miles outside of the pass and dropped down some live menhaden. I was affraid that either all the snapper had been caught on Monday, or they would all get lock-jaw once the season opened, but we immediately started hooking up. Took about an hour to get our limit of 6 red snapper. We fished on and also picked up a couple of Mangrove Snapper and Lane Snapper (kept one Lane). Kevin likes to fish for Kings, so he kept a flatline off the back and landed a small King and a couple of axe handle Spanish Mackeral to finish off Tuesday.
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Ran into my neighbor Jim on the way home who has been working charter boats for the past 3 years and decided we would give it another try on Wednesday. We headed out at 7 AM into relatively high winds already, and the threat of rain. Loaded up some really nice baits and hit the favorite spot again. The change in weather along with the 4 to 5 foot seas seemed to totally turn the snapper bite off, but we did manage to land a total of 9 Amberjack, one for each drift we made over the wreck.....we kept our limit of 2 but only got one short Red Snapper between the weather and AJ's jumping the baits.

Forgot to even take pictures until we got back.....
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Winds were blowing 15-20 and pushing up 4 to 5 footers making it hard to powerdrift over the wreck, so we headed in and figured we would use the rest of the bait in the bay. My little inshore spot wouldn't give up any grouper today, but we did manage to get a few nice trout to add to the AmberJack. Kept these three and released the 'dinks'.

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Turns out that Jim hooks and gaffs a bunch of fish working the charter boats, but rarely gets to fight them, so today seemed to be a special treat for him. I was getting a bit 'green under the gills' after I caught the first 2 short AJ's, so elected to just concentrate on powerdrifting the wreck and let Jim do the fishing, he landed the other 7.....it was hard to toss back legal sized AJ's, but we already had our limit.

Now I've got to go back to work, just so I can rest up for fishing the weekend!

chumhead

[MartyJ16]

Now I've got to go back to work, just so I can rest up for fishing the weekend!

chumhead

You work??? When???

Looks like you are always out there catching 'em!!;D

[Redfish]

Chum, it amazes me how different fishing is in the various parts of our state. Five miles out for red snapper, mangrove, AJs, and kings. We would have to run 40 -50 miles off to get any decent red snappers or kings. AJs and mangrove are practically unheard of around these parts.

Nice catch. Those are some beautiful fish and looks like you fellows had a nice couple of days of fishing, rough water and all.*thumbsup*

[chumhead]

Luckily, most of the guys did make the longer run in search of bigger Snapper, but we had been catching and releasing about 20-30 snapper each trip to this spot before the season opened while going after AJ's and Grouper, I figured Murpheys Law would have them catch "lock jaw" once the season opened but that wasn't the case (for Tuesday at least). Its about 70 feet deep there fishing an old wreck the Navy sunk a few years back, and about 200 yards away is a very large superstructure from and old bridge span....another major fish attractant, but the AJ's like to tie you in knots to the steel superstructure. (on clear, calm days you can actually see the top of the structure, which rises to about 45 feet). The really nice part was that I spent about $20 in fuel for BOTH days. *yay*

As for working, yup....I usually work 5 days/45 hours a week, Tuesday was my regular day off this week since I worked the weekend, Wednesday was my makeup day for working the Memorial Day holiday. Also, there ARE some advantages to being single......no "honey do" lists.....only "wanna do" lists, so I generally fish every one of my off days. *014*

chumhead

[Shakespeare]

Chum, One of your bad days of fishing blows out what I consider a good day of fishing. *001*

Nice catchin' there. Keep posting the reports... it gives me hope. *008*

[Gunnar]

Awesome report and catch chumhead *Cheers**018*

Gregg

[workinprogress]

Nice, Chumhead.*thumbsup**thumbsup*