285exp

Work, weather, and a burned up starter managed to kill several trips before, over three weeks into our new abbreviated snapper season, I finally got to go fishing. Thought about trying for the blue water, but since this was the first trip in a while (I'm still burning $3 a gallon diesel) and I hadn't properly seatrialed the boat since she had been serviced, we decided to do a snapper expedition.

Cleared Perdido Pass around 6:30, seas flat. Headed south to a cluster of tanks around 25 miles out. Arrived about an hour later to ugly brown water and not another boat in sight. In prettyshort order we had caught a couple of nice snapper and released several more shorts, as well as a short aj. Aftera couple ofdrifts over one of the tanks, I went back to the helm to set up again and looked up to see another boat a couple of miles off headed in our direction. Set up another drift and rejoined my buddy in the cockpit. A few minutes later I looked up to see the yellow Sea Huntless than a hundred yards away and heading directly for the spot I was fishing. This guy had a choice of literally dozens of spots within a couple of miles, and he picked the one I was on. Soon he was close enough so I didn't need the VHF in order to tell him that there were plenty of other spots nearby. He responded by asking if I had paid for it. Now, I'll be the first one to tell you that he had the same legal right to fish that spot as I did, regardless of whether it was a public or private reef, but common courtesy says that if someone else is already on a spot the size of a tank, you go somewhere else, even if you really, really wanted to go there. Then he told us that he was just stopping there to catch some bait. He spent the next 10-15 minutes cruising around, messing up my drifts, so his crew could catch bait on the spot I was fishing. So here's to you skipper :Flipbird

nextstep

nice fish:clap

jmartintcb

Nice Snap snap! Good eatin' 3.00 diesel....wow, thats something you can add to the list of "things you never hear anymore" Thanks for the post.

wrightackle

It is wild the way people will get right on top of you with so many other spots so close by! What is really annoying is when you are anchored up and have the fish chummed up and under your boat and someone gets right next to you and sends the fish down. Can't really say anything because they are public numbers. Just have to grin and bear it. Usually they don't catch anything and move on looking for some magical spot.