Launched out of Fort Desoto with fellow forum members Calwygfer and his friend Erro, Marlin009 and his brother Bill.
Heading out of the pass my GPS screen went black. Turned it off and on several times while we continued to our first spot some 30 miles offshore and it was acting like it would come back on but would go back to a black screen. I left it on hoping it would come back to where it was visible but it just wasn't happening. Finally about 10 miles out I pulled back on the throttles and was getting ready to scrub the trip. As soon as I stuck my head in the console the damn thing came back to where it was visible according to the crew but by the time I got back to the wheel it went out again. Turned off the radio and switched the batteries over and it came back on again, and again it went back out before I go to the wheel, but came back on with me standing there. We continue on....
Pull up to the first spot and throw the marker and calculate our drift. Target for the day was AJ's- since that is the only damn thing you can keep right now. All 5 of us were rigged up with different sized Williamson Vortex and Shimano Butterfly jigs ranging from what looked like 2.5 oz to 5 oz. It didn't take long until Calwyglfer was hooked up, then Bill, then me. I believe Calwyglfer lost his and Bill and I landed two unimpressive fish about 20" long. It didn't lake long for Marlin and Erro to hook up either and every drift had multiple people hooked up multiple times with most of us getting 2 fish on each drift(current and wind were perfect for drift fishing). Finally Bill hooked up with the first keeper right at 31" to the fork. I followed up with a keeper(guessing around 34") and then Bill put another keeper in the boat and then Calwyglfer got in on the act and boated a keeper. By this time there is a 3rd or 4th boat that pulled up to the spot and decided to anchor right where we were drifting through.
So we move on....
Headed to the Mexican Pride and pulled lures around it a few time hoping for a surprise but no takers. There was already another boat anchored up but we still had plenty of room to drift by at a safe distance and we immediately started hooking up with undersized fish again. We lined up a little farther off on our second drift and Marlin hooked up with a stud that could not be stopped. Bill hooked up 3 times in a row here and kept losing fish later to find out it was b/c the gap in his hook opened up. One more drift and I hooked up with a good sized one. I held the rod for a few minutes during the fish's first couple of runs and asked if one of the other guys wanted it. Erro did and quickly had the fish boatside and a gaff was put in our final keeper for the day.
We left the Pride and headed North to check out a spring that someone had given me the numbers too. Either I didn't find it b/c I don't know what to look for or no body was home. Left there and headed a few more miles to a mitigation area along the Pipeline and as soon as the anchor came tight and the first bait was down a Red Snapper came up. We only fished this spot for about 30 minutes and easily caught what would have been our limit there before moving inshore trying to find some Mangroves.
We arrive at the next spot and are immediately catching Gags and Red Grouper. Looked like 2 of the Gags were near keepers. I also landed a Red Snapper here in 85'. I downsized tackle a little bit and started catching a few Porgys before I made the call to try another spot in 70'.
When I cranked up the motors the port engine quit on me. Gave it some throttle on start up and it quit again as soon as I went to put it in gear.
To make a long story a little shorter, we limped in from 25 miles out on 1 engine at 8 knots. When we got within cel phone range I discovered that my phone had some how gotten wet- no phone and my day has now gotten worse....
I used another crew member's phone and let my wife know we would be in late and then laid down to try to take a nap. Got back in took pictures with the fish and we all went our seperate ways.
Great group of guys and pretty solid fishing. Looking forward to doing it again.
Offshore Tampa AJ's 2/20 
