[capt_dalton]

We fished Saturday and Sunday. Saturdays trip was pretty decent. I had a Greek doctor, Dr. Dimitiris Kyriazis, his 11 y/o son, his 70 y/o father in law, one of his doctor friends son, Theo Koulianos, and another doc, Dr. Shultz and his son John Paul.

Well, I thought Dr. Shultz looked familiar. He started talking about some of the people he is in practice with and I recognized my wife's urologists name. That's when I figured it out. He was on call one of the weekends Sussi was in the hospital recently and had made rounds two days in a row. Then he recognized me. Small world.

It started off pretty sporty Saturday. NNE wind honking about 15 knots and an outgoing tide. We made good time getting out with the extra push, but once we got there, it was rocking pretty good.

We put 4 nice red snapper in on the first spot. I had planned to hit a different spot first, but, there was a boat too close for comfort. I was surprised to see some nice snapper at the spot I picked because someone had found it and kept it hammered flat most of the year.

Next stop was my glory hole and I guess two years is about all you can hope for in keeping a good spot to yourself. We caught 4 nice keepers there, but, the fish did not mark at all. I haven't been there in more than a month. Such is life I suppose.

Next stop we finished off our 6 man limit of snapper and added a nice 23" gag grouper and a trigger fish or two and a smoker king on the drift line.

The wind switched around to the east and really stacked the seas up to a white capped steady 3 foot splash fest. I made about 9 knots into the waves and went looking for trigger fish. I had 5 spots picked to find them and we picked up a total of 18 nice ones between three of those with a few beeliners and 3 lane snapper mixed in as well..

By the end of the day is had flattened out nicely and the ride in was quick and comfortable.

My Sunday trip was the one that we put up on the raffle for Dustin McKenna. There were more people that wanted to go than I could take as a charter and since it was a not for profit trip anyway, I just ran it as a fun trip. We had eight on board, so it would be a 16 red snapper limit for the boat. The east wind had set in strong and really picked the seas up. It was a steady 2 to 3 foot rocking chop on the ride out. I had intended to run out about 35 miles and check some spots I haven't been to since the start of the season. But, I changed course to some things a bit closer. I was still brewing about my glory hole being practically devoid of life, so I picked some spots that would take me near there to go and check again. I made some large sweeps around the area and marked a few fish there, but, still not what the spot used to hold. We went ahead and took 10 fish there. Its the end of the season and the weather is looking such that I will not be able to fish it again anytime soon.

The next spot we knocked off the rest of our limit with six fish in the box. We also had a 30 minute fight on the drift line that ended when the hooks straightened out. Never saw the fish, but, chased him all of the place in some seas that kept building to the point of being very uncomfortable. We had two folks succumb to the salt water virus there.

The seas were really standing up and the east wind seemed to be on a steady build. We trudged to the east for about 5 miles to check some more spots for trigger fish. Once there, it was obvious we would not be out much longer. The first spot produced 10 nice trigs and two beeliners. A spot about 1/2 a mile to the north added 17 more, acouple beeliners and one king on a whole pogie dropped deep on a circle hook. We pushed it on in after that. Sixteen red snapper, 28 trigger fish, 5 beeliners and one king mackeral. Not to bad of production for a 7 hour trip in some seriously crappy conditions. The rain started to pour about 30 minutes after we had docked. Gotta love it when a plan comes together.