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The weatherman was right! Mostly around 1 foot or less all day. We started out at ST 63 in about 95 feet of water. The water was murky all the way out just as Gmack had stated. However, the extinct snapper didn't seem to mind. After catching and releasing a few we headed further south towards ST130. Once again, more extinct snapper. From there, I attempted to find MC311 but stumbled upon EW305. I forgot to bring my chart so I had no idea how much further I needed to go. Looking now, I see that I was only half-way to MC311. At this point, we had also caught several big white trout, a spanish and a trigger fish.
At the last rig we hit, GI 75, we finally got into some nice fish. There, we caught two amberjack, lost several big fish to the rig, one nice sized cobia and of course red snapper.
I bet we caught 30 red snapper without ever really targeting them.
Called it a day around 2:00 p.m. By the way, I used diamond jigs for the first time today. I'm sold. I need to replace the ones that I lost to the fish that went into the rig, though.
Sounds like a good trip! Yeah the red snapper are thick. Dad said they at the close in rigs they were fishing for mangroves, not weight just drifting chunks of pogies into the rig and pulling up nother but 5-10# red snapper! That was in 60' of water! Said they even caught one on the bottom in 410' fishing for grouper.
I should be going this coming weekend if the weather holds.
hthoang im calling BS on the snapper you say you caught...........we know there isnt any more of them in the gulf.............nice trip you had there...............................what gets me is that every report on every f/forum has reports (with pictures) showing all the snapper being caught yet gulf council seem to think theres a shortage problem..........makes me so mad!!! anyway nice report and glad yall made it out...........
hthoang im calling BS on the snapper you say you caught...........we know there isnt any more of them in the gulf.............nice trip you had there...............................what gets me is that every report on every f/forum has reports (with pictures) showing all the snapper being caught yet gulf council seem to think theres a shortage problem..........makes me so mad!!! anyway nice report and glad yall made it out...........
LOL! I'm no scientist but my unscientific observation is that the average size of the snapper this year is a couple of pounds bigger than several years ago. I think I caught only 1 snapper that was even close to 16". Most were 7-10 pds.
A few years ago I went on a charter trip and we had to measure most of them. I don't believe we had any snapper over 5 lbs. So...maybe the lower limits and shortened seasons are working.
What I'm concerned about, though, is the effect of hundreds or even thousands of 7-10 pound snapper on a particular rig. There's only so much food to go around, right?
I guess what I'm saying is that I am all for reduced limits if it helps the fishery and is based on good science. Why should Louisiana with its hundreds of offshore rigs be considered even remotely the same type of fishery as Florida? I think each state's department of wildlife and fisheries department should provide the information to the Gulf Council and that limits should be determined per state.
I think the oil rigs can easily support a 4 fish/person limit with an April-November season....especially with the fuel prices where they're at right now. It cost me $100 for the car and about $150 for the boat....certainly not the kind of costs I'd want to incur every weekend. At today's costs, I'd be lucky to get out twice a month and I make a decent living.
What type of boat were you in? We were at EW305 as well. We were there in a Twin Vee 26, saw a Triton (I think) there. From Baton Rouge/ Lafayette?
Diamond jigs are awesome by the way, I'd be surprised if there's a fish out there that won't hit a diamond jig. I think I prefer the butterfly-type jigs though, they seemed to outperform the regular diamond yesterday. We use the Williamson Speed Jig, usually you can get it for about half the price of the shimano.
What type of boat were you in? We were at EW305 as well. We were there in a Twin Vee 26, saw a Triton (I think) there. From Baton Rouge/ Lafayette?
Diamond jigs are awesome by the way, I'd be surprised if there's a fish out there that won't hit a diamond jig. I think I prefer the butterfly-type jigs though, they seemed to outperform the regular diamond yesterday. We use the Williamson Speed Jig, usually you can get it for about half the price of the shimano.
Concur on the butterfly jigs outperforming the diamond jigs. It seems the Shimano ones work the best, but D@MN are they $$$$$
What type of boat were you in? We were at EW305 as well. We were there in a Twin Vee 26, saw a Triton (I think) there. From Baton Rouge/ Lafayette?
Diamond jigs are awesome by the way, I'd be surprised if there's a fish out there that won't hit a diamond jig. I think I prefer the butterfly-type jigs though, they seemed to outperform the regular diamond yesterday. We use the Williamson Speed Jig, usually you can get it for about half the price of the shimano.
That was us! It's amazing that out of the hundreds of rigs out there and millions of people online that we ended up meeting there. By the way, ya'll were the only boat that we saw all day. How did you end up doing? Before we tied up, we were jigging upcurrent and got a few hits so we tried again upcurrent before we left. Didn't get a bite. That crew boat was churning up the water pretty good, though.
Strangely for us, the diamond jig outperformed the butterfly-type jigs for us. I find that the butterfly type jigs tend to catch a lot of the small trash stuff like bluefish and hardtails.
The two triggers that you saw us pull up were probably the best fish we caught all day. I think we caught one red snapper at that rig and then the bite turned off, so he hopped around some rigs in shallower water. The best results of all of our trips lately is that we have marked more than enough rigs to keep us busy with some nice snapper once the season opens.
We didn't see many other people, one more boat at a rig in about 150' and one more on the run in, and that was it.
Fourchon 4/19 
