Our wonderful neighbors Paul and Thuy invited us to go on our first mangrove snapper spawn trip of the year. It is a nighttime thing, with the activity picking up around the new moon cycles in June, July and August (I think). Last night moon set was at 10:30 pm and that is when we expected the bite to be on.
We took Paul’s boat and had an awesome crew. Paul, Thuy, their daughter Emma, and old friend of theirs Matt, Robin and I.
Emma and Thuy were ready to rumble with a full on lay down spot with sleeping bags and mermaid fins mid- ship. As for Robin, I forgot the bean bag, so she got a cooler seat! 😦
The mangrove bite is on top of the reef, and Paul took us to a couple of his favorite haunts. He saw fish on his sonar, we dropped anchor and waited sunset.
Chum in the water, I brought a few dozen live pinfish, and we also had bonito and ballyhoo for cut bait.
This is a dark fishery, so only red lights allowed! Paul covered his cockpit light with red transparent tape, and it really is blind fishing! Especially for me, difficult to tie knots and leaders!
Matt demo’d the truth stick … and robin almost immediately put a nice mangrove on the boat. Unfortunately pictures did not come through well in the red light, so no play by play.
The bite never really picked up the way we hoped, but the fish we caught were really nice quality. Mangroves in the 4 pound range, Paul got a nice red grouper, Robin caught a nice porgy (dinner tonight!), another fish of note was a Toro fish .. new species for Robin and I.
We got back home and into bed at 0200 (expected but ouch!). I had an AmEx Global Infrastructure wide video presentation to co-host early this morning, and did it with a Hawaiian shirt on and smile on my face!
So time to hand it for control to Robin. On the menu, porgy cooked in tin foil the Greek way.
Sealed in foil on grill with Lemon, olive oil with garlic, rosemary, Salt & pepper
Great company, great trip, looking forward to the next adventure!
Gorham Fishing Team 