Sunday the 27 I had scheduled the Scogin brothers, Jamie and Pat along with their bud Jeremy to come and try a trip to the rocks for some deep dropping. Randy Bragg, Andy Biggs and one of the dock regulars "Jug" rounded out the crew.
We pointed the MAR-T south at 6 a.m. into a fair swell from the east and ran it up to 16 knots pointed due south. 4 hours, one rain storm, and a steadily increasing sea and east-southeast wind later I pulled the throttle back at the MP-225A rig in 250 feet of beautiful blue water. The AJs marked great, but, they were not interested in anything we offered them. I guess the water can be too clear some times. The current was a lot stronger offshore than it has been near shore. I gave up on the AJ there and went straight to some rocks I found during last years Alabama Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo. The fish were on a feed there. Jug, I think, was the first to score a keeper with a 15# red snapper. On his subsequent drop he hooked up very solid with a fish that would take him 15 minutes to get to the boat. Whilst he was getting that one out of the rocks, Pat’s bait got hammered and he hooked up solid as well. Now, Pat is what you might call a big ol' boy. He had the Penn Standup Slammer bowed up for a solid 20 minutes. Meanwhile, Jug's fish had finally come into sight and it was nice. Bo got the big gaff and stuck a 24# snowy grouper. Pat was still bowed up, and sweating hard. SSSNNNNAAAPPPPP!!!!! Holy cow, Pat's rod shattered. Wow, everyone just sorta looked at him slack jawed.
It looked like he was about to drop what was left of the rod when I reminded him that he was still hooked up to the fish. So, he began fighting it with the 2' of rod he had left. There was nothing to bow and only two eyes left on it. He stuck with it for another 10 or so minutes when the stretched tight line hit a shard of the busted fiberglass fishing stick and the line snapped. He was the poster boy for dejection after that.
Quite a few nice fish came from that rock, but, the bite started to slow. I went looking for another rock I found during the rodeo and for whatever reason, could not find it, but, found another that looked promising. The scamp came in pretty good from this new find. Particularly good for Mr. Randy Bragg. After loosing several fish to pulled hooks after lengthy battles, one finally held all of the way to the boat. They had made all manner of guesses at what he was reeling in when I glanced back at what looked like a stud gag grouper. Bo gaffed it and swung it into the boat for all to admire. Then it hit me, that big old slob was a scamp, and a right fine one that went 18# 11oz. back at the dock.
We tried a few more rocks in the area and boxed some white snapper (porgies), some undersized AJ and a few monster beeliners. With the long ride out, you only get about 4 hours of fishing time before you have to head back to the dock.
We pulled the high speed Wahoo lures all of the way out with no hook ups, but, the water was a beautiful blue and chock full of flying fish. We deployed them for the ride in and at about 38 miles out the starboard 50 wide started screaming. Randy Bragg was first to the reel and he slid the drag to strike. There must have been some technical difficulties somewhere along the line because the fish that was stuck at 16 knots somehow got unstuck, a "swing and a miss" so to speak. (Aye Mr. Bragg?
).
I made one more stop to get our limit of snapper topped of as we only kept 4 from the rocks.
It was a very interesting, fun and exhausting day. Running the boat all day in those conditions will take it out of you.
Sunday, May 27th aboard the MAR-T 
