Holy Mangrove Snapper! Boy were they chewing today. The original plan called for final dialing in/check up reconnaissance for Red Snapper with my friend John, we found them. Then these guys showed up, biggest one was 25.5". They were eating Sardine chunks and shrimp. Also caught the bonus Trigger and Almaco which will be blackened for dinner tonight. We left them chewing because it was crazy hot, zero wind, could've hit the limit if we had some more powerade. Ride out and in was absolutely dreamy, biggest waves we encountered were other boats wakes back in the river. This is what is possible on the 6+ hour trips folks!

My friends from Middleburg had a trip today they'll never forget. They had never been saltwater, much less offshore fishing before and boy did they get one heck of an introduction today. Action was steady and it was the ladies who were the only ones putting fish on ice for dinner. In addition to a million grunts, we caught Red Snapper (released), Vermilion Snapper, Mangrove Snapper, Trigger Fish, Squirrel Fish, a small Red Grouper, Graysby Grouper, Blue Runners, a very big Blue Stripe Grunt, and a huge Sandbar Shark. Then the day was over, it was time to head home. I began cleaning and prepping the boat tossing out old bait when a monster Cobia made an appearance. We scrambled and threw everything we had at him trying to get him to bite. He taunted us for 30 minutes coming up and only sniffing our bait while we watched with the greatest anticipation. He wanted nothing to do with our shrimp and sardines, so I sent a smaller rod back down to the bottom and caught a live Blue Runner to throw on the big Cobia rod. It didn't take long before he hammered that Blue Runner and it was on! My man grabbed the Penn Senator and gave this Cobia some serious what for. In no time, he brought the fish boat side where the gaff found its target and now was officially on the menu for dinner. Ride quality on the way out and in was a solid A. Great job guys!

Had a great day with this family, most of them from Utah. Action was good a constant all morning on this 6 hour 3/4 day trip. We caught a wide variety today: Mangrove Snapper, Lane Snapper, Remoras, Graysby Groupers, Cobia, Blue Runners, and Squirrel Fish. My man in the black shirt had really done his research, knew all about venting fish for a safe release despite never having been offshore fishing before! He was crushing it today! Ride out started as a A, peninsular Florida blocked the West wind for the first few miles out. Ride quality eventually eroded to a B, then to a C the further out we went, very choppy and rough. The ride back in was the opposite, rough at first and gradually improving the closer we got to land.