# 2-27 & 2-28 [Amazing Sunset & a Cool Story]



## ThaFish (Feb 27, 2013)

*2-27: *
Mitch & I were in Panama City Beach from Thursday night until late this afternoon, so we decided to hit the surf a couple times. On Friday afternoon around 4:30 we headed across the street to the beach with the kayak loaded down with sharking gear, bait, & some surf setups. Mitch manned up & ran both shark rods out past the second bar. Our bait of choice on each rig were some slot red carcasses that we've had in the freezer since fall waiting on a sharking trip. Kinda old, but we figured that since there have been reds running the surf lately it may be a good idea to try using some for bait. While he attended to running baits, I made up some chicken rigs for our surf rods & baited them up with fresh peeled shrimp from the market, since I see some of you guys have been doing well on peeled shrimp (I've never tried it before!). Fished a few hours with no clicks & no hits before deciding to head back to the house to get some dinner & warm up. 

*2-28:*
We went down to the beach around 1 o'clock this afternoon, hoping that a last ditch effort may pay off with one of us hooking a surf red. Unfortunately luck was not on our side. My first cast ended with me sending my rig halfway to Cuba due to getting some loose line on my Abu Black Edition. I re-rigged & sent some fresh peeled out past the first bar, & then threw Mitch's rod even further. We only had until a quarter after 2 to fish, because we had to leave by 3 so that Mitch could get back to Pensacola to work. We didn't get any hits at all, but one interesting thing did happen. After we took our baits off, we each tried throwing as far as we could, just for fun. *Here's where the cool story part from the title comes in. On my second cast I somehow managed to snag my rig that I had thrown off an hour before! I snagged it much closer in than where I saw it land, & it had no bait left on either of the hooks. Left the beach smiling after pulling that one off! * 

Even though neither of us hooked up with anything, it was still nice to hit the surf for a while. It's been too long! 

*Tally for the two days:*

*Mitch:* Nada
*Me:* Skunked

Tight lines everyone.

P.S. Joe, if you're looking at this report. I took the pictures of the Black Edition for ya to let you know that she's in good hands.


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## ThaFish (Feb 27, 2013)

Got a couple funny photos of Mitch trying to take a picture of the sunset on his phone. & the last photo is of me with my rig that I snagged!


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## FenderBender (Oct 2, 2007)

*2-27 &amp; 2-28 [Amazing Sunset &amp; a Cool Story]*

Great report and pics! Sucks about the bite, but you never know unless you go. Love how pcb gets the over the water sunsets, that west facing curve does the trick! Big waves there on a west wind, too. What kind of camera are yall using?


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## Sharknut (Mar 18, 2013)

Ya know what - been reading your reports for the last couple years. Used to think it was a little obnoxious and that you guys were catching the same 4 redfish off sykes over and over and my vision was going bad looking at your teeth. BUT - I've come to really enjoy the reports and your enthusiasm for fishing. You've got a talent for writing and telling a story. If you went back and collected all your posts and pics I'll bet a dime to a donut you could put a pretty damn good book together. Just a thought. Keep it coming and I hope to catch up and fish with you guys this year.


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## LIM-IT-OUT (Aug 26, 2014)

super sweet pics broseph 
to bad I wasn't in the background hooked up with a bull on my abu combo would have made for a much better pic, just sayin


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## southern yakker (Jun 25, 2012)

Dang that sucks you got skunked, but fishing without catching is still better than not doing anything at all.

I'm pretty sure the use of any game fish as bait is against the law so you might want to be careful using red carcasses. I could be wrong though, just giving a heads up though.


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## LIM-IT-OUT (Aug 26, 2014)

you crack me up with those action shots of Mitch poor Mitch poor poor Mitch, I got your back bud.


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## stc1993 (Nov 23, 2014)

southern yakker said:


> Dang that sucks you got skunked, but fishing without catching is still better than not doing anything at all.
> 
> I'm pretty sure the use of any game fish as bait is against the law so you might want to be careful using red carcasses. I could be wrong though, just giving a heads up though.


Ive watched fishing shows where they go to fish markets & get carcasses out of the dumpsters for shark bait.


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## ThaFish (Feb 27, 2013)

stc1993 said:


> Ive watched fishing shows where they go to fish markets & get carcasses out of the dumpsters for shark bait.


Yeah, it's definitely legal to do, as long as the game fish you're using adheres to size regulations as well. I wish we would have had some fresh rays instead though!


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## ThaFish (Feb 27, 2013)

LIM-IT-OUT said:


> super sweet pics broseph
> to bad I wasn't in the background hooked up with a bull on my abu combo would have made for a much better pic, just sayin


Thanks homie. Ehh, that would have been cool. But it would have been even cooler if it was ME fighting a bull on MY Abu combo in the background.


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## kanaka (Oct 3, 2007)

Great sunset pics! You running the images thru Photoshop for the extra pop or are they unmolested? The colors are vivid.


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## ThaFish (Feb 27, 2013)

kanaka said:


> Great sunset pics! You running the images thru Photoshop for the extra pop or are they unmolested? The colors are vivid.


Thanks man! Took more than a few shots to get some that I was really happy with, but I think the ones I saved turned out pretty awesome. These photos have all been saturated to some degree & then defined/sharpened for that little bit of extra "pop," but it was just done in iPhoto on my Mac instead of in PhotoShop. I also bumped up the contrast a bit as well. Oh, & these were all taken on my Nikon D40, just in case anyone was wondering!

Here is one of the originals for comparison!


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