Pushed thru the pass by 8am with lots of live bait. Went 33 miles South of Destin to find clear, blue-green colored water. No action other than bonito. Anchored & bottom fished the Ozark and ledge but the current was HELLacious! The wind died & the seas went flat calm & it got H-O-T!! Almost miserable hot!

Caught a small Grouper of some sort & then gave up the strong current to move in & fish Mingo Ridge area. Mingo Ridge was a bit greener/emerald & relatively clean. We anchored up on a bottom which was holding sharks. I think they liked our ballyhoo stickers on the bottom of the boat - lol. They hung around so we put out live threadfins to catch a few. Not 2 minutes later a fish was on one of them. Turns out to be an 11LB bonito. Go figure.

Caught a nice porgie on the bottom & more bonito & a small shark. Scott's friend loses his camera overboard - ouch.

While Scott & Jared try to get his line unstuck from the bottom, I hooked up on the Penn 320GTi which had a live threadfin on & 80LB braid. My azz got kicked!! It took all I had to fight that fish - I could just barely lift the rod! It felt like I was trying to bring a big rock up off the bottom. I muscled him up for quite awhile until he decided to finally run - and he went straight down & I went to my knees and held on & yelled for some help asap!! LOL. I NEVER do that, so you KNOW it had to be big. haha. Scott lent me his muscles to help hoist it on in & it ran again - drag was cinched down & we went even tighter & it was peeling line off still. In a short matter of time I hear SNAP! The rod breaks! One half falls into the water & the other half is intact. My mouth drops to the floor - I asked what in the world do I do now - lol - he told me to keep reeling. It was the funniest sight. Fish eventually gets close enough to the surface for us to see its a shark side and tail & then it bites the hook off. That was FUN! :-) I'm starting to like this sharking business! lol. Wishing we had of bought that optional OBX rod insurance too.. HA!

Gave it up & were back on the hill at 6pm. The water offshore was a lot calmer than it was nearer to shore this afternoon on the way in.
 
A few pics:

11LB Bonito

3 words - Big D*mn Shark = On my knees holding on for dear life..lol!

Broke my rod!


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Amanda ~ REEL FINATICAL Fishing Team, 26' CC with Twin Yamahas

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