# Panama City Report- 6 Aug 2011



## neuby (May 8, 2009)

Got a later than normal start due to some extracurricular activities after work on Friday, then chased bait for awhile when we should have just bought it. Had planned to fish some bottom about 10 milesout, but slick calm seas coaxed us to making a longer run to some bottom 20 miles out in hopes of better quality fish. Lines hit the water about 0830. I started off the day with the 21 lb red grouper (scale verified) you see in the pic within 5 mins after hitting the first #. Red grouper was the obvious focus of the trip since that is essentially all you can keep right now. We let probably 2 dozen red snapper go, with probably half in the 10-15lb range. We caught a ton of red grouper that were just shy of legal and the area was being stomped pretty hard by a full head boat the whole day. We had managed 7 of our legal fish and were one away from limiting out with our 4 man crew when the chicken dolphin showed up and all hell broke loose. We decimated the school and put about 15 in the boat, and the bite had slowed and something came and clipped the two flat lines in the rod holder. About that time Mr. Cobia swam up so fire drill number two commenced trying to rerig something to throw to him. Fortunately this Mr. Cobia was even dumber:whistling: and hungrier than normal. He chased a jig, but want not eat it and dissapeared out of site. A minute later he comes right behind the stern and I honestly contemplating trying to free gaff him. Next try he made a run at the top half of a spanish but did not eat. The only baits in the livewell were 2 inch choafers and almost dead herring, EXCEPT for that elusive had size hardtail I had caught on the first sabiki drop early that AM. Unbeknownst to me my buddy Blair had been trying to catch his little ass for the past hour to feed to a grouper, and after untying and dumping the entire contents of the livewell on to the deck he was finlly successful in catching him. I had just tied on a jig with one of the semi-alive threadfins, but as soon as the hardtail hit the water it was game on. Unfortunately it was not at the end of my line, but I did get the pleasure of sticking the hook in him and bringing him over the side about 10 minutes later. After all of this we had forgot about the last red grouper to make the boat limit, but nonetheless a pretty good trip despite the environmental hippies best efforts to keep us from fishing in the middle of the summer.

Trip totals
7 Red Grouper- 1 at 21 #'s
15 schoolie dolphin up to 3 lbs
1 king aound 20 lbs
1 legal triggerfish
1 45#(estimate- length was just over 48 inches to fork)

Released
20+ red snapper, about half in the 10-15 # range
several Gags, including 1 pretty fish estimated 12-13#



























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## Mullethead (Oct 4, 2007)

Man, nearly a limit on red grouper and sweet cobe - good trip !


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## bamagun (Apr 28, 2008)

Excellent trip guys..


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## basin (Dec 21, 2009)

Blair,nice haul,im the guy u met out at island a couple of weeks ago with the hunting land, for some reason your # did not show up on my phone.


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## cobe killer (Apr 13, 2008)

dang nice haul guy's. nice cobe.


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## Snatch it (Feb 17, 2009)

Nice!!!


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## neuby (May 8, 2009)

basin said:


> Blair,nice haul,im the guy u met out at island a couple of weeks ago with the hunting land, for some reason your # did not show up on my phone.


Basin- This is Blair's friend Brian (we also met at island that day- thanks again for the beers after we ran out!). I did the psot here (Blair typically posts on the FS forums) but I will let him know-


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## basin (Dec 21, 2009)

yea Brian,i remember, tell him not bad for such an old boat,ha. I think were gonna come down this weekend,if yall need another person to help with fuel


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