All of you have heard since boy scouts to be prepared. This motto carries on through out life and especially when fishing. Earlier this week we fished James Bubba Turner and E. C. Smith. We left O’Neil’s Marina out of Saint Pete around seven in the morning. Joining us was my longtime friend Captain Shaun Crawford of Bradenton. We ran some thirty mile after catching a well full of bait. The forecast was for calm seas but it was solid 3-5 footers in the morning so it took a while to find our spot. Once we were anchored up it didn’t take long for the grouper bite to turn on. We had been catching a lot of keeper fish on this spot but for some reason the shorts had moved in. As we were chumming a school of dolphin, that’s right Mahi Mahi moved in to pull our attention away from the grouper. As quickly as the appeared they disappeared and we were back to grouper. About that time Bubba lands a nice 15 pound red grouper after getting broke off by a toad. As we were thinking about leaving E. C. exclaims the flat line, the flat line he grabs the rod as goes even further, I’ve got a Sail Fish!” Guys let me tell you this fish put on a show, with explosive runs and jumps this was the first sail I or Captain Shaun have caught of our Tampa Bay waters. The sail made the trip worth while for all. After the sail we ran to a near by wreck for some snapper and Amberjacks both greater and lesser and let me tell you the lesser AJ’s are great on the table, better than grouper to me.
