Gag Grouper: Back in Season

After many months of throwing big Gag Grouper back in the water and watching them swim past my spear gun without being able to pull the trigger, they have finally come back in season! Danny, Jonny, Dustin and myself left the dock early this morning in hopes of filling the cooler with grouper slabs. I went to take the pinfish out of a bait hotel I had filled up and left at the Marina on Friday only to find that someone else got a lot of nice baits without much effort yesterday. So for about the next hour and a half we worked on trying to fill the bait well, you can never have too much bait.

Dustin showing off our catch

It was a flat calm morning and the water is finally starting to clean up after Tropical Storm Debbie made a mess of things in the Gulf. We tried a few ledges in 50 - 60 feet of water only to catch the typical 18" Red Grouper. But after going to a ledge in 85 feet of water we quickly dug seven big Gags off the bottom and into the cooler. It feels a lot better throwing a fat Gag into the cooler than it does throwing one back into the water! Just when we were about to leave, a school of small Mahi Mahi showed up and mixed the action up. We ended up catching eight of them on jigs and small pieces of sardines. We would leave one in the water until someone else hooked up, in this way we were able to keep the school at the boat. After the last few took off we moved on to a mitigation area near the pipeline for our last stop.

My Cobia and cool sunglasses

On the way I chunked up a bonita and a bunch of threadfins for chum. When we arrived we were happy to see that we had the spot to ourselves. That's the benefit of having Mondays off. We began chumming in hopes of rising the snapper. I don't know if it was the full moon or what, but we could not get the snapper bite going. Our chumming efforts weren't in vain though. Dustin yelled, "Look, two sharks!" and I quickly corrected him, "Cobia!" I scambled to put a threadfin on my free-line set-up. One of them was huge, at least 6 feet long and man was he thick! The smaller one grabbed my threadfin, spit it out and then swallowed it again, the fight was on. I was expecting the big one to stick with him but unfortunately it took off, not to be seen again. After a nice fight that broke in a new heavy spinning rod set-up I put together over the weekend we gaffed a beautiful 40" cobia and put it in the cooler to join the other fish.

Huge American Red Snapper

After a few more fish we decided it was time for the last effort of the day. I brought a dive tank along for insurance. I suited up and because I knew that the big Cobia was still lurking somewhere out there, I elected to use a line shaft with my spear gun; I'm glad I did. When I reached the bottom that was littered with rock piles at 95 feet, I was greeted by a big Gag Grouper. He watched me swim down above him and as I neared shooting range he began to retreat. I took a long shot and missed. As I was retrieving my spear a huge American Red Snapper came swimming up beside me to see what the action was about. In a panic I put the shaft back in the gun and tried to load my band. In my haste I didn't lock the shaft in right and it came back out. I tried to calm my nerves as I carefully locked the shaft, loaded the band and without rewinding my line, shot the snapper as he quartered away. The shot went through it's stomach and it took off, taking me for a ride. I thought for sure it was going to rip off as snapper do so often when shot through the soft belly. I managed the get to it and grabbing the end of the shaft, I pinned it to the sand as I wrestled to put my kill ring through it's eyes. When it was secured I let out a Turtle Man holler under the water. I think I was the most excited I have ever been spearfishing. I continued on to shoot a Gag, a red grouper and two mangrove snapper. It was amazing how many huge fish were down there but at 95 feet a tank burns up quick and soon it was time to make my ascent.

Jonny with some small Mahi Mahi

When I got to the boat I was congratulated and we snapped a couple pictures of the 30" Red Snapper that was the icing on the cake for our day. Red snapper go out of season next week and due to the unusually windy June we've had it will most likely be the only one we have the privilege of eating this year. Red Snapper are my favorite eating fish in the Gulf and I am going to savoir every bite of it. But Gag Grouper are going to remain in season for a couple months to give us something to look forward to. At the end of the day we had a limit of 8 Gags, 2 Red Grouper, a Flounder, a Cobia, 8 Mahi Mahi, and a giant American Red Snapper. Not too shabby; now the hardest decision for us is what's for dinner: blackened Mahi Mahi, grilled Cobia? Grouper sandwiches? There's a lot of possibilities.