Big Bend Brian
Registered
Two friends and I left the Cedar Key dock at sunset aboard my 24 foot Bare Necessities intent on grouper fishing and to dive a nice ledge I recently found 36 miles offshore.
After a bit of fishing the guys let me take a look at the ledge we were fishing. The surface temperature was 72° and there was a 6 foot layer of tannin colored water delimitated by a sharp thermocline and water color change. On the way down a small school of twenty 10 lb amberjacks followed me to the bottom. At 78 feet the sand met a 75 yard long rock ledge, running along a 90° to 300° heading, which at the tallest point was 4.5 feet tall and undercut by about 13 feet deep. Quite a few scamp hovered over the ledge with mangrove snapper running on top of and along the ledge bottom with a few smaller gag grouper and white grunts mixed in. There were not a lot of gag present, nor did I see a single red snapper, but off in the sand a few larger grouper were staying on the periphery of my vision-the largest going about 18 lbs. Fish were every where including a lot of cubbyu, reef croakers, and a few juvenile queen anglefish, spotfin butterflyfish, and tangs. At the end of the dive I pole speared a nice hog snapper and caught a nice sized ridged slipper lobster near the back of one of the undercuts. He was standing upright (upside down) and his yellow and bright red-striped legs gave him away. The bottom temperature was 67° with about 20 feet of clear visibility (no suspended particulate matter).
Ridged slipper lobster
Ridged slipper lobster close-up
Frontal view
From marker # 1 out to 28 feet the surface water temperature was 73.2° F, at 35 feet it was 73.9°, 73.2° at 50 feet, 72.8° at 64 feet, warming by midday to 76.4° F. With no effort to try to catch a variety of species it was interesting to note that we caught 16 species that I can recall: red porgy, grass porgy, gulf toadfish, scamp, gag and red grouper, graysby, amberjack, black seabass, pinfish, reef croaker, pigfish, white grunt, spottail pinfish, blue runner, spanish mackerel, and a small Kemps Ridley turtle (released of course).
Kemps Ridley turtle
We ran a total of 85 miles for the day keeping 10 gag to 14.1 lbs, a few white grunts, and one hog snapper, red porgy, and a ridged slipper lobster. As a final note, the slipper lobster tasted sweeter than Florida spiny lobster, but the meat was coarser and tougher than compared to spinys (using similar cooking techniques). No complaints-it was very good. It was a sweet day on the water with some good friends.
HooYah!!
Brian
Here are a couple of fish pictures too.
Me with a nice 14 lber
Outstanding conditions!!
Sanfords red porgy.
Jay with his 13+ lb gag
After a bit of fishing the guys let me take a look at the ledge we were fishing. The surface temperature was 72° and there was a 6 foot layer of tannin colored water delimitated by a sharp thermocline and water color change. On the way down a small school of twenty 10 lb amberjacks followed me to the bottom. At 78 feet the sand met a 75 yard long rock ledge, running along a 90° to 300° heading, which at the tallest point was 4.5 feet tall and undercut by about 13 feet deep. Quite a few scamp hovered over the ledge with mangrove snapper running on top of and along the ledge bottom with a few smaller gag grouper and white grunts mixed in. There were not a lot of gag present, nor did I see a single red snapper, but off in the sand a few larger grouper were staying on the periphery of my vision-the largest going about 18 lbs. Fish were every where including a lot of cubbyu, reef croakers, and a few juvenile queen anglefish, spotfin butterflyfish, and tangs. At the end of the dive I pole speared a nice hog snapper and caught a nice sized ridged slipper lobster near the back of one of the undercuts. He was standing upright (upside down) and his yellow and bright red-striped legs gave him away. The bottom temperature was 67° with about 20 feet of clear visibility (no suspended particulate matter).
Ridged slipper lobster
Ridged slipper lobster close-up
Frontal view
From marker # 1 out to 28 feet the surface water temperature was 73.2° F, at 35 feet it was 73.9°, 73.2° at 50 feet, 72.8° at 64 feet, warming by midday to 76.4° F. With no effort to try to catch a variety of species it was interesting to note that we caught 16 species that I can recall: red porgy, grass porgy, gulf toadfish, scamp, gag and red grouper, graysby, amberjack, black seabass, pinfish, reef croaker, pigfish, white grunt, spottail pinfish, blue runner, spanish mackerel, and a small Kemps Ridley turtle (released of course).
Kemps Ridley turtle
We ran a total of 85 miles for the day keeping 10 gag to 14.1 lbs, a few white grunts, and one hog snapper, red porgy, and a ridged slipper lobster. As a final note, the slipper lobster tasted sweeter than Florida spiny lobster, but the meat was coarser and tougher than compared to spinys (using similar cooking techniques). No complaints-it was very good. It was a sweet day on the water with some good friends.
HooYah!!
Brian
Here are a couple of fish pictures too.
Me with a nice 14 lber
Outstanding conditions!!
Sanfords red porgy.
Jay with his 13+ lb gag
