# Gulf Report Friday 01-06-2012



## Caddy Yakker

Launched with my buddy Ollie on the East side of Margaritaville on Pensacola beach at about 0900. It was a little foggy but I'm used to West coast fog. The plan was to get some bobos and stop to fill the livewell. On the way we founf a 75' hole less than 2 miles off the beach with structure! Got plenty of bait, mostly bank seabass and I think a kind of sand perch, some just undersized triggers and a couple nice black sea bass and the best part was not one snapper!!!








We got several bonita on the way out for bait which was fun on lite tackle.

With the livewell we continued on to our primary destination, a large wreck a little over 4 miles south of the beach. We had it all to ourselfs and after a couple pass I marked some nice fish about 25' down. I stand up to do some jigging and I can see a school of AJs below the kayak!! I think I had a couple hits on the fall that I missed and I saw one follow it up and turn on it and miss







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By this point I'm a little tired from the ride out and decide to sit down and drop down a live one. I drop it about half way down and put it in freespool. I feel a few chomps like a snapper and then a good run, start reeling and fish on! After a decent little battle I pull up a 28" gag! My first legal gag from a kayak







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Well after I tell him how much I'm gonna miss him at dinner back he goes









Right after that Ollie pulls up a healthy snapper that looked like close to 30"s
and right about then the biggest and fattest porpoise shows up for lunch.
He eats every single snapper for the rest of the day and boy does it suck when you do everything you can to get the fish back in the water as quick as possible only to watch flipper kill them all! He didn't want anything to do with the big toad fish we release...... imagine that. Oh yeah I didn't see, mark on the bottom machine or get anymore jig hits after fliper showed up.

So after catching and releasing countless snapper and none we small, I finally get a good run on a live bait. Its pulling hard and staying deep and I was hoping AJ! As soon as it started heading away from the wreck i new what it was and after about a 20 min fight and being towed a 1/4 mile away thru the fog up comes about a 7' shark. Right as I grab the leader and about to cut the line about 5 or 6 dolphin come out of no where and head straight for the shark! They were all over that shark and I guess the shark new they were about to have thier way with him. The shark makes a hell of a run I thumb the drag and off he goes! I started my gopro at the beggening of the fight and I guess the batteries were very low cuz it shut off after 29 secs









We decide to kayak over to a spot a little southwest of our location and try our luck. Snapper after snapper after snapper. So by now its about 1600 and we have a solid 1 hr nonstop peddle/paddle ahead of us so off we go. Of course we stop to check out some marks on the bottom machine and make it to the beach about 1730.
I was a beautiful day on the water and had a blast playing catch and release!
I know we paddle over 12 miles that day because we went to a few numbers on the way out but didn't mark stuff at most of them.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=AqNkZq53ofY
Heres the 30 secs of video before the battery died fighting the shark


Same thing happened here, battery died and I didn't even realize it until I got home. It sucks when you miss out on good video!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=QduOvKw3qrY



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## Caddy Yakker

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## Caddy Yakker

Sunday 01-08-2012

Well I thought a days rest was enough and the forecast looked great so we got to the same spot on the beach with the same plans as the day before.
Launched at 0730 and after 1/2 mile I realized I needed more than a days rest lol.
I'm still not quite used to peddling a kayak and my legs were burning!

So after getting live bait and bonita we make it to the spot a little after a diver pulls out. Didn't really mark a whole lot and things were kinda slow besides those endangered red snapper. I did have some big runs pull me into the wreck on 65 lb braid which kept us motivated. We got one nice flounder to take home. Not a lot of meat to take home but it was a beautiful day to be on the water and had a blast as usual. I forgot how much I love fishing in the Gulf, kinda lost my motivation to fish inshore lol.

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## Caddy Yakker

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Still a good ways out!
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Oh theres the beach!!
The surf landing at night sucked and I won't do that again!!


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## Ginzu

Nice report. I hope this weekend has the same conditions. Did you see what kind of shark it was? Some nice size snapper. Did it spook you guys coming in when it was getting dark?


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## Caddy Yakker

Thanks. I think it was a sandbar shark.


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## bbarton13

Wirelessly posted (Iphone )

Great report bro!


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## Chris V

Nice report. I'd love to have some Black Seabass filets in my fridge right now.


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## Ginzu

Ah, the endangered sandbar shark.


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## Bonsaifishrman

Great report and quite a few very good size fish caught. Nice. Maybe will get out there some day myself, on someones invite.


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## grey ghost

very nice!


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## Foulhook

Great report and pics. Amazing how easy it is to catch those endangered reds.


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## Caddy Yakker

Ginzu said:


> Nice report. I hope this weekend has the same conditions. Did you see what kind of shark it was? Some nice size snapper. Did it spook you guys coming in when it was getting dark?


Yeah mainly on Sunday, the surf picked up in the evening and it was really dark. It was also my second time taking the PA out in the gulf and the first time it was really flat. I think I'd rather launch in the dark than come in, in the dark.


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## Rocko

looks like a great day for sure...memories made


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