# Saturday 8/7, The Gulf is Alive!



## jw1973 (Feb 8, 2009)

This is an important day in history. In 1942, the USMC landed on Guadalcanal. Here's a shout out to the Veterans living and deceased who fought on that island. My grandfather served there. It's also my Mother's Birthday. On to the fishing...

We left Little Sabine around 8 am with 2 boxes of cigs, 1 box of Northern Mack, 1 box of chum and some squid. Had a little breeze from the NW, not bad. Cleared the pass and had beautiful blue green water all the way out. Birds everywhere, fish busting bait EVERYWHERE. On the way out and on the way in, fish were blowing up bait. 

Started at the Liberty Ship, there were a couple boats there. It's a big GOM so we moved on a couple miles S to some natural bottom. 1st fish is a 16" trigger. Great way to start the day. Then the snapper move in. For an hour or so, it was nothing but snapper, 16" - 20". Also caught an under size AJ. Started chumming, within minutes, size of fish starts to increase, all Red Snapper. Fishing on the bottom...Red Snapper. Fishing midway up...Red Snapper. Now pushing 20" - 26". 

I've seen Black Snapper school behind the boat in a chum slick but never seen red snapper do this. We had schools of Red Snapper schooling behind the boat. My bro in law took his light tackle rod, free lined a cig off the back with a wire leader and a treble hook hoping for a fun fight with a king. He get's a nice hit, fights it for a while, fish pulls drag several times. He gains a little ground and the rod tip breaks. After a few more minutes, 23" Red Snapper! I'm not kidding, hit a cig top water, rigged with a steel leader and treble hook. I bet we caught 40 Snapper. I'm not kidding. It was amazing!

The only negative of the trip was having to throw back all the snapper. When you catch 40 Snapper, 2 Trigger, 1 AJ, and 1 Gag, how is it that the snapper are protected? Yes, I know we've all asked this question 1000 times. Anyway, you know something's messed up when the angler says, dammit, another red snapper.

Give me a sec to load the pic of the trigger. I'm assuming you all know what 40 Red Snapper look like.


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## jw1973 (Feb 8, 2009)

Here's the triggers, both about 16". Sorry I don't have more pics.


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## FishVan (Oct 6, 2007)

Thanks for the report...it's amazing how many snapper are out there. Glad you got out. Better than I can say lately.


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## karma (Oct 26, 2007)

chumming and free lining baits in the slick is exactly how to pick off the biggest red snappers off a wreck.. when i fish like that I tie a 30lb leader uni uni so there is no swivel.. then just size 1 circle hook.. we were catching 25"+ snappers using my redfish rod that has 15lb power pro on it! They rarely wreck ya but hit the bait like a train trying to get back down to the wreck! Sounded like a fun day.. 

The kings are all over those wrecks but need to be trolled to have the most success!


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## Naby (Jan 18, 2009)

Is there a limit on how deep the spot can be for the chumming trick to work? Should I anchor right over the spot or up current a bit?


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## jw1973 (Feb 8, 2009)

In this case, the "spot" was more of an area, Natural Bottom. 90+ feet deep. We've chummed the Bridge Rubble effectively before too. I think that's about 75 or 80 feet. There wasn't much of a current but it was slightly W to E. We were anchored and as the day went on, we swung to the N. It was money the whole day.


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## karma (Oct 26, 2007)

up current is the prefered way to anchor in most situations.. it will allow for more opportunities to find different fish.. from straight down with heavy lead.. or the entire water column with lighter lead or nil'


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## user6993 (Feb 15, 2009)

Good post glad you got to get out and have some fun. Some times we will just chum the snapper up behind the boat and have a ball with lite line.Thanks again for the post. Gene


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## skays (Jul 4, 2009)

*8/8/10 fishing results - - HELP!!*

Went out Sunday and caught nothing at all. Using fresh frozen and live cigar minnows, plus some jigging lures. Even put out a stinger with fresh cigar minnow. And I mean we caught nothing. Tried some wrecks but they were covered with divers. Tried natural bottom...with the numbers we had...nothing. Anyone want to share a couple of numbers?? And to top it off, one of the engines died so we went in at 5 mph or so. Glad the pass was nice and calm or it would have been interesting. Appreciate any help for the new guy.


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## Naby (Jan 18, 2009)

skays, PM sent. I'll pass on some of the same help that has been given to me. Of course, now that federal waters have opened up you'll have many more places to explore than I have so far. 



skays said:


> Went out Sunday and caught nothing at all. Using fresh frozen and live cigar minnows, plus some jigging lures. Even put out a stinger with fresh cigar minnow. And I mean we caught nothing. Tried some wrecks but they were covered with divers. Tried natural bottom...with the numbers we had...nothing. Anyone want to share a couple of numbers?? And to top it off, one of the engines died so we went in at 5 mph or so. Glad the pass was nice and calm or it would have been interesting. Appreciate any help for the new guy.


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