07.25.11 - Guale Girl - 40mi bottom

[ssiredfish]

So I took a buddy who spends all his time in the marsh grass stalking Redfish on his first offshore bottom fishin trip yesterday. Seas werent too bad on the way out and a lil' sloppy on the way in due to a south wind. Baited up at G reef and me and Jamie hooked up with 2 nice Snapper right on the first drop. He seems to think these reds pull a tad harder!!!!! We left G and went to the 40mi to find pretty water and a solid B-liner bite. This was the first time I have seen them at every number we dropped on. THEY WERE THICK!!!!! At one point we started movin around just to get away from them. We moved to my southern-most number and had a good bite there also with more reds, B-liners and Seabass. Then Jamie snags the bottom or at least I thought it was the bottom till I saw the head shake. After Jamie whomped on this fish for awhile, or maybe it was the other way around, He started making ground. I thought we were in for a 60lb Gag but turns out to be the biggest Nurse I've ever seen!!!! I'd say he was all over 9-9.5' and somewhere around the 300lb mark. For reference, the mooring cleat in that pic is 6" long. We cut the line and sent him/her on their way.
For a newbie offshore/bottom fisherman Jamie did very well but that's no surprise and it wouldn't surprise me if we see him out again where the big boys are. Also had a manatee waitin for a drink when we got to the dock which was a nice ending to the day


5 Reds to 15Lbs
limit of B-liners in as much time as it took to type this line
limit of BSB
1 black Margate
1 mogan of a Nurse shark, no doubt a state record.....