Another August weekend, another nice snapper haul from the Merry Pier in St. Pete Beach. I arrived promptly at 5:00 a.m., and Mike joined me just minutes later. Armed with cut frozen Spanish Sardines, we went to work on the rokpiles at te north end of the pier. The snapper were aggressive and big. We were throwing back pretty much anything less than a foot - there were plenty of 13″ to 16″ fish.
My goal was to finally nail a legal gag grouper- and, once more, I was unsuccessful, although I did manage to haul in about 17 of them, up to 21 inches. Yeah, that’s right- 21″ inches… and, yes, I was pinching the tail.
Once the sun was up and the sardines were dwindling, Mike started throwing the net. He hanldes a 10″ cast net greta, and soon we had some big lively greenbacks. We freelined a few, resulting in some stron Spanish Mackeral hookups (and cutoffs). I soaked a few on the bottom, and was rewarded with more big grouper and snapper. All in all, a pretty fun day… and I was still home by noon for weekend chores…
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