3/11 Offshore Venice, FL

[Chico]

After spending all nite Friday on the Sea Trek fishing with my two new fishing buddies Mike and Jim from NJFishing, We all had a charter on Monday with Capt. Joe. We filled the charter with some of my local fishing buddies as well as Mike's wife, Laura. We left before daybreak and headed out several miles to load up the livewell with baits. We then settled in for the long ride out to "the pipes" where we hoped to put six Ajs on ice. When we got there we were greeted with rough seas and a slow bite. First two I had on broke off due to break offs, one under the boat, the other my leader got looped over the sinker and snapped. An hour later we had our first AJ to the boat and as Capt. Joe reached over to grab it a pair of HUGE Cuda's attacked!! Slamming into the side of the boat as they attacked the AJ. In a flash Capt. Joe "free gaffed" one of the cudas as he again slammed into the side of the boat. Needless to say, the cuda was not at all amused. After a minute of thrashing and splashing, the cuda was over gunnels and on the ice as was the AJ. Quite a sight to see!!! (One of our charters wanted the cuda). We then moved back into about 120' of water and looked for snapper. The bite just was not there, we kept moving all day, we coulda liimited out on big red grouper if we wanted them as they seemed to hit anything we put in the water. Mike and Jim tried some diamond jigs for the snapper and ended up with several big red grouper including one HUGE firetruck!!. Joe kept us out past 5:30 PM and we then headed home with several dozen snapper, mostly lanes, with some nice mangroves, nothing huge. Still a great day out with After spending all nite Friday on the Sea Trek fishing with my two new fishing buddies Mike and Jim from NJ. We had a charter on Monday with Capt. Joe. We filled the charter with some of my local fishing buddies as well as Mike's wife, Laura. We left before daybreak and headed out several miles to load up the livewell with baits. We then settled in for the long ride out to "the pipes" where we hoped to put six Ajs on ice. When we got there we were greeted with rough seas and a slow bite. First two I had on broke off due to break offs, one under the boat, the other my leader got looped over the sinker and snapped. An hour later we had our first AJ to the boat and as Capt. Joe reached over to grab it a pair of HUGE Cuda's attacked!! Slamming into the side of the boat as they attacked the AJ. In a flash Capt. Joe "free gaffed" one of the cudas as he again slammed into the side of the boat. Needless to say, the cuda was not at all amused. After a minute of thrashing and splashing, the cuda was over gunnels and on the ice as was the AJ. Quite a sight to see!!! (One of our charters wanted the cuda). We then moved back into about 120' of water and looked for snapper. The bite just was not there, we kept moving all day, we coulda liimited out on big red grouper if we wanted them as they seemed to hit anything we put in the water. Mike and Jim tried some diamond jigs for the snapper and ended up with several big red grouper including one HUGE firetruck!!. Joe kept us out past 5:30 PM and we then headed home with several dozen snapper, mostly lanes, with some nice mangroves, nothing huge. Still a great day out with a great group of friends. Laura proved to be quite a fisherlady and put some nice mangroves on ice!!