gulf coast red snapper trip

[Steplift 72']

Originally Posted by phatdaddy

whale, that's a fine red snapper.12 lbs maybe. we had 18 fish for the day (fl limit is 2 per person because they are almost extinct)


thanks willy, sure beats the old days of chucky cheese or the skating rink.

They aren't extinct over here in LA. We're just stuck with the 2 snapper limit because they're turning down elsewhere. When I started fishing you could sink the boat with snapper if you brought enough bait. Now you just have to get past the range of bay boats to be in good water. We see shallow draft bay boats 40 miles offshore, death wish I suppose. I heard that Florida is fighting the oil exploration in the panhandle. The production platforms add structure that supports the snappers existance....but the oil production crews are messy. We were down at our beach place today and found 2 half buried 55 gallon, rusty drums out near the waterline along with a half dozen plastic 5 gallon buckets and enough junk to fill a truck. The oil exploration is a mixed blessing but it would add to the hard bottom and support much more fish. Unfortunately it's hard to justify running 55 miles one way for 2 fish per person.