Another flight of the Yellowfin 24-7

It was a little windy, that morning in July 2011, but not too much for the 36' Yellowfin 24-7 with Captain Lee Longworth at the helm. After netting white bait and hooking some Spanish sardines, Captain Longworth headed the boat southwest in search of mangrove snapper and red snapper.

Cutting through the water at about 40 mph, it wasn't long before we reached 176 feet of water. While the Captain chummed for mangrove snapper to bring them to the surface, the rest of our crew bottom fished. We began to bring up gag grouper over 30 inches which were immediately vented and returned to the Gulf waters. Gag grouper were recently deemed off limits by NOAA.

By the time we caught and released a half dozen gag grouper over 30 inches, the mangrove snapper were on the surface eating the chum. We switched to light spinning rigs and began to fight the hungry mangrove snapper. Sight fishing mangrove snapper that were 5 to 8 pounds with cut bait was a real hoot, as we often had 2 and 3 fish hooked at the same time.

The following may give yo a little perspective regarding mangrove snapper in the Gulf of Mexico. About 10 years ago, a group of us were diving in the Florida Keys on the Gulf side, just killing time the day before the lobster sport dive was to begin. We were in about 10 feet of water over a sandy depression. Suddenly we were amazed at the huge numbers of fish we could see, so we jumped into the water with them. I could see that this was a huge school of mangrove snapper all moving to the North. I tried to cross this huge school of fish, but after a hundred yards or so, I gave up. I couldn't determine how wide or how long the school was.

From the sandy depression, we watched these fish for over an hour. There must have been hundreds of thousands of mangrove snapper, all headed North. Fast forward 10 years.

Now, the Gulf seems to be full of mangrove snapper. In late summer keeper size mangrove snapper come up into Tampa bay and are caught by the bucket fulls. The deeper you go, the larger they get up to 8 and 10 pounds or so out to around 175 feet. We soon had our limit so the captain set sail for the red snapper numbers.

As every angler lowered their baits, they were met with a shoulder wrenching pull, as red snapper to 15 pounds began to wear us down. it wasn't long before we had our 2 fish limit. Meanwhile during the day at that spot, we took 4 scamps; caught and released another 4 gags over30 inches and one 40 pound gag. All these beautiful gag grouper had to be vented and returned to the deep. As the day wore down, we headed home at 48 mph. what a day and what a nice 2 hour flight home, sitting on bean bag chairs at the stern of the 36 foot Yellowfin, the 24-7.