Light Tackle Mangroves

**pmcgucken** · May-28-2010, 07:07 AM

Went offshore out of Tampa on Saturday, 5/23... Put the boat in at Ft. Desoto and ran to a few different spots to load up the bait well with pilchards, cigar minnows, and pin fish. While at the last bait spot, we had a nice cobia follow up the baits on the sabiki so we pitched him a bait and landed a respectable 42" cobia, which was a nice way to start the day! We then proceeded to make the 40 mile run offshore. We got to the spot, made a few passes and the fish began coming up off the bottom to greet us... We started chumming heavy and the ball of mangrove snapper came up to the surface just as we had expected, even though we were in 105' of water, the fish were so thick it was reading 25'. We started free lining cut bait and loaded the box with huge mangrove snappers. I also caught a nice red snapper while free lining for mangroves...We caught all of these fish on light tackle spinning outfits typically used for flats fishing, making it quite sporty! We caught a five person limit (25) of mangroves in about 1 hour... We caught several aj's on the surface because any live bait that touched the water on the surface got murdered by an aj. We tried to drop some bottom to round out the yeti with some grouper fillets but we couldn't get the baits passed the red snapper, which are out of season until Tuesday. After releasing several nice red snapper we called it a day early and went in and cleaned fish and drank some beers. Enjoy the pics!

**ReelPlumber** · May-28-2010, 07:22 AM

Nice Pics! Great day of fishing. I hope to get out tomorrow for some dolphin and cobes.

**Almost Time** · May-28-2010, 07:22 AM

Nice work Patrick, those are some hog Mango's! You wouldn't have an up close picture of the GPS with the numbers on it would you??!!

**pmcgucken** · May-28-2010, 07:45 AM

Funny you should ask Boone! The first picture my buddy's girl took had the coordinates perfectly legible on it! I had to delete that one really quickly before our secret spot got out! We will get you out there so you can see it for yourself... We will need to do it soon though because these fish will move and not be as thick in about a month or so.

**squirtis** · May-28-2010, 09:21 AM

awesome job Patrick!!!!

sick pics. ....looks like a blast..damn jelous and wish I could make a run for them..but alas...no offshore for me until the baby arrives!!

Keep the reports coming man!!