Last minute charter

[capt hoop]

Got a call last night when I was almost home with the boat from my outstanding (FUN) day. Lee had a lower unit blow when he was 45 miles from the pass on the way in from Thunder Horse. His customers wanted to do an inshore trip Sunday. I accepted and had them meet me at the dock at 7:00 am. Due to the late getting in they were too cold and beat to even clean the catch so they just iced the tuna they had. Basicly I had to finish the trip from the previous night before I could get my job started. We hung up the tuna, took a picture, and cleaned them. Why do I get stuck doing something I had nothing to do with in the first place?????



Once the tuna and mahi were cleaned we gave them to the marina to vacume pack and freeze for taking home in a few days. I iced the boat, got bait, and headed out about 8:45. I wanted to stop at a close point but with 6 boats there I only saw 1 small trout taken while I went slow past them. The next place I passed had about the same amount of boats and I was not interested in joining them either. I moved on and started about 3 miles from the marina. The bite was a lot slower than yesterday and these guys were not quite into the program yet so they lost a few. First 2 fish in the box were a white trout and a speckled trout both about 14 inches.



Early into the day a hog starts pulling drag and I am thinking a bull red. Unfortunatly it turns out to be a black drum the redfishes cousin. It bottomed out the scale at 25 pounds and my guess is 30 pounds. A few pictures and back it went.



Each spot put 4 or 5 trout in the box. The pick was very slow. When we got a keeper there was no doubt and the shorts were just that. By noon we only had 21 keepers in the box. My 3 man limit for the day was 75. I decided to change tactics and moved to a hole that has more white trout than specks. This move steped up the action and we were getting double and tripple hookups. I did not even use the fishbox I just flipped them into a basket and dumped it every now and then.



After an hour of this I moved on looking for the specks. We kept adding a few every now and then. I tried some out of the box tactics and I think it helped. Can not and will not let the cat out of the bag. We managed another black drum that was borderline keeper. After some discussion we decided to keep it. After I looked at it in the fishbox I figured it may be just big enough to have parasites. I gave it a pardon and released it from the death chamber. I have cleaned many and at that size it is a borderline good or bad meat call. Made his day!

It's cold in here



We ended up with only 45 trout to 4 pounds and about 80 - 100 white trout. Only fished till shrimp ran out although we were also catching on plastics. Also caught a croaker that went back and 3 sting rays.

This father and sons from Missouri had never been here before so to hit Offshore and Inshore as well as they did the first time here was a trip of a lifetime to them. I know they still have a long way to go to get that trip but they have found the place to make it happen.

Life is Good!
Fishing is not a matter of life or death. It's more important than that.

CAPT HOOP -- OUR FREEDOM