Today my fishing buddies were my buds Mason Williams, his son Brent, and  Mike Krenn. We started out the day by picking up enough bait to do us for the entire day. Water is too cold in the river to spend time catching pinfish so we went to one of my favorite bait wrecks to pick up enough bait to do us for the entire day. The wreck wasn't holding the sardines I wanted but we were able to fill the well with grunts in short order.

    Our first couple of spots were dead slow with only a few short snapper to show for our efforts except for the cobia that swam up to the boat. I grabbed my spinner and spoon fed him my jig and after a short struggle I was able to bring him alongside.  Then, shall I say a few  events with the gaff ended up with a cobia that was gutted by the gaff and looked like swiss cheese. The first shot stuck the fish, but the fish and the gaff disappeared into the briney blue. This was dismissed by a certain crew member, who shall remain unnamed, as a "slippery gaff". The next gaff shot was to the belly that the fish disemboweled itself on. Then, there were a few "swings with a miss", and a few choice words from that certain crew member wielding the gaff that were overheard by all. Just the suggestion that I trade places with him by having him hold the the fishing rod and me the gaff, almost pushed said crew member over the edge. Finally, after said crew member finally made good on his efforts, the cobia stirred the cockpit liberally until a final blow to the head with my tee ball bat ended the melee. We all had a good laugh at the aforementioned crew member's expense, but, the bottom line was that the cobia was invited to dinner.

So, with sore ribs from all of the laughing we decided to move a different spot where I had a pretty good idea that the bite would be on. I checked one and decided that I'd move on to ole reliable and the decision paid off. We had pretty much non stop action catching and releasing short snapper for about three hours. I personally lost a brute of a snapper due to a pulled hook and probably would have been a personal best had I been able to get him to the boat.

The weather today was absolutely outstanding, the entertainment worthy of an academy award, and a a bunch of dinners of succulent fish a delicious reality.

Final tally for the day:

8 Red Snapper
6 Lane Snapper
1 Cobia